AMPERAGE Marketing & Fundraising

One-Minute MarketerThe Big Data-Driven Persona Media Buy

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The Big Data-Driven Persona Media Buy

For years, media outlets have conducted research to understand the psychographics of the audiences they sell. Psychographics are nuggets of information amid broad demographic information. But now, Facebook not only knows about its audience demographics, Facebook also know a lot about its users—down to their very likes and dislikes.10173508_1391502087741222_754726790_n

Facebook is providing big-data dives with Audience Insights. Before, you could easily match your advertising purchases to age targets, but now you can also aim at people who enjoy adventure travel or are into fitness. Even more importantly, you can also target people who have high engagement on Facebook. If you are stuck in the “Like” world, you can now target people who are likely to like your posts.

You can begin to build predictive personas to understand your targets. Facebook, like many researchers, provides lifestyle personas. The complex personas are from US demographic and interest data based on purchase behavior, brand affinity and activities. They have nicknames such as Children First, Career Building, Married Sophisticates and Lavish Lifestyles. You can also build your own ultra-targeted personas.

All of this is made possible by understanding the data Facebook is able to mine from billions of interactions and cross-referencing that data with demographics, income data and other third-party data collectors.

Understanding the personas of your market allows you to build a detailed journey map prior to beginning your marketing efforts. It’s all big data, but it is refined, so you can understand the little nuances and micro-moment decisions that drive behavior.

Written by:

Mark wrote his first direct-mail fundraising letter in 1981 for the University of Iowa Center for Advancement. The effort raised a few million dollars in undiscovered wills and legacy gifts. From that day forward Mark discovered a love of the big idea that moves the needle.

After 12 years at KWWL, Mark became a business owner as a co-founder of ME&V — rebranded as AMPERAGE in 2015. After 25 years of leading creative teams in video production, graphic design, PR, writing and web development, Mark transitioned out of ownership in 2021. Today he serves in an employee role as special projects consultant.

He is creatively ambidextrous — son of an artist and engineer — and famous for distilling complex ideas down to a few words and a few visuals. Mark is a writer. When he found that many nonprofits struggled with complex branding puzzles, he wrote the book, “NonProfit-NonMarketing .” He also wrote a novel called “Reenactment.”

Mark is an active blogger OneMinuteMarketer® with nearly 1,000 readers each week on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter. One of his most popular YouTube videos is on “How to Look Good on Zoom.”

One of Mark’s fondest business memories was being named to INC 500 two times and attending the INC 500 conference with other winners. Mark is considered by some a Civil War expert (and that explains his novel). Mark also served as an adjunct professor in the business and in the communications departments at Wartburg College.

Mark is a graduate of the University of Iowa and is currently vice president of the University of Iowa Journalism and Mass Communications Advisory Board.

Mark is married to state Sen. Liz Mathis, and the two love to travel, even when it means being trapped by a volcano in the Czech Republic for three weeks.