A study released in September by iHeartMedia and bestselling author Malcolm Gladwell’s Pushkin Industries determined that 44% of Americans feel ignored by advertisers — highlighting the many differences between consumers and the marketers trying to sell them products and services.
The findings, from the second annual “The New American Consumer 2.0” study, also offered insights designed to help marketers avoid their own biases and better understand and serve key audience segments.
In a piece published by Forbes, iHeartMedia Digital Audio Group CEO Conal Byrne takes a deeper dive into the numbers and a more granular focus: small-business owners. “What motivates them?” Byrne asks. “What matters to them? And how does that inform the best way for marketers to reach them?”
Enter Critical Mass Media, commissioned by iHeartMedia to conduct a study of more than 500 small-business owners — men and women 18-54 who run businesses with less than $20 million in annual revenue. “Surprisingly (or maybe not),” Byrne writes, “we learned that most small-business owners often look more like consumers than they do typical marketers when it comes to their values, beliefs, and spending habits, resulting in a similar disconnect in how marketers understand and talk to these small-business owners.”
Byrne offers three key takeaways for marketers who want to improve when it comes to reaching consumers and small-business owners:
Team up with real influencers who are trusted by consumers. Byrne notes that “there’s a large gap between SBOs’ positive perception of local broadcast media talent and their lukewarm feelings toward social media influencers: According to the research, 74% of small-business owners think it’s ‘cool’ to advertise on the radio with their favorite on-air hosts, while 36% think it’s ‘cringe’ to use TikTok influencers to promote their business.
“There’s a quick lesson to learn here: Go for real influence. Small-business owners trust on-air hosts because they live and work in their communities,” Byrne says. “In fact, 80% of listeners feel audio hosts, across podcast and broadcast, are part of that circle of trust.”
Elevate your targeting to show up where it matters. Consumers are creeped out by too much personalization in advertising — with 68% of consumers “hating” being trailed by targeted ads. Small-business owners felt the same: Two-thirds of SBOs agree they, too, are creeped out by hyper-targeting.
Writes Byrne: “Marketers should balance targeting with investment in the consumer’s passion points to avoid the creep factor and to better reach the audiences they need — with trust, context and real influence.”
Know your consumers’ values and meet them where they are. Small business owners, like consumers, put twice as much emphasis as marketers do on religion and law & order. Small-business owners also ranked lottery tickets, hunting/fishing, and attending church as leading “cool” factors (aligned with today’s consumers, as per “The New American Consumer 2.0.” Yet buying lottery tickets was “cringe-worthy” to marketers.
“A critical part of our role as marketers is to understand our own biases and push past them,” Byrne writes. “That means understanding our consumers’ values and showing up where they spend their time, even if it may be unfamiliar or uncomfortable for us. That is how we start to bridge this gap — and do better work.”
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