Meeting the 5G Consumer Where They Live
The advent of 5G, the fifth generation of wireless technology, is transforming the way we communicate, work, and play. The improved connection density and faster data rate of 5G will open economic opportunities across many major industry sectors, including retail, agriculture, manufacturing, automotive, and healthcare. In fact, Statista reports that these advancements are expected to add $1.5 trillion to the U.S. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 2025. As bright as the future of 5G may look, understanding the effects of 5G, that alone how to maximize your marketing efforts within this burgeoning market, are not quite as clear. Let’s bring it into view.
Understanding 5G: The Basics
5G is succeeding 4G LTE wireless technology and represents a quantum leap in terms of speed, responsiveness, and connectivity. The primary goals of 5G are to enhance data speeds, reduce latency, and accommodate the growing number of connected devices in our increasingly digital world.
Ultra-Fast Speeds: 5G offers blazing-fast download and upload speeds, potentially reaching up to 100 times faster than 4G. This will allow for such things as downloading high-resolution movies in seconds. Obviously these speeds can vary influenced by factors such as the frequency used by an operator, distance from a base station, and physical obstructions.
Low Latency: Latency measures how long a signal takes to go from its source to its receiver, and then back again. With 5G this delay in data transmission is significantly reduced, enabling real-time communication and seamless experiences. 5G latency will be faster than human visual processing, making it possible to control devices remotely in near-real time. With many practical applications benefiting from this, gaming, virtual reality and augmented reality applications are also high on the list.
Increased Capacity: With a more extensive bandwidth, 5G can support a massive number of devices simultaneously, making it ideal for the expansion of the Internet of Things (IoT), AI, smart homes/cities, and edge computing.
Ultimately all of this leads to the ability to deliver better products, user experiences and new services within an infinite array of industries and applications. So, as a marketer planning for a future within a 5G and beyond world, how do you reach the right potential customers?
Targeting 5G Customers: Strategies for Success
Identify Your Audience
Understanding your target audience is fundamental to any successful marketing strategy. When it comes to 5G, consider demographics, behaviors, and preferences within each product group you are marketing to. Are you targeting tech enthusiasts, gamers, business professionals, or the general consumer market? How do you narrow that field?
PRO-TIP: In looking at Claritas’ ConneXions, the audience segment that topped the list in excitement about 5G and its benefits was Plugged-in Families (Wealthy, Age 25-44, w/ Kids). However, Bundled Burbs (Upscale, Age 35-54, w/ Kids) ranked the highest of all segments for excitement over the 5G benefits for gaming; and Kids & Keyboards (Upper Midscale, Age 35-54, w/ Kids) scored highest for the benefit of a more reliable network. This shows the importance of knowing why consumers are interested in this technology.
ConneXions by Claritas: Designed for the technology and telecommunications industry, ConneXions is a proprietary segmentation tool that helps you know more about the technology behaviors of today’s connected consumers. It helps predict adoption rates for all major technology categories. By creating a more complete picture of current customers and prospects, ConneXions allows for more targeted, effective messaging and improved campaign ROI.
Craft Tailored Messaging
Obviously you need to create messaging that resonates with the benefits of 5G. More importantly, that needs to be tied directly to the specific customer audience groups you identified as your target audience(s). Are they interested in 5G or do they need more education? Why are they interested? Are they already using it? Why or why not? Which benefits of 5G are most important to them? Knowing the answers to these questions allows you to build specific ads, content and messaging to meet each of these different applicable segments with the right messaging.
PRO-TIP: Go beyond content and personalized advertising – optimize engagement with Claritas’AI Personalization. AI-driven creative optimization ensures a more personalized and responsive advertising experience, delivering customized messaging to each viewer at the right moment. Using a variety of distinctive creative elements for each campaign, AI Personalization has the potential to build millions of creative/audience pairings, using the ideal match for each impression. AI algorithms continuously optimize creative pairings, ensuring each impression is matched with the ideal creative, a level of precision and adaptability not achievable with manual intervention.
Utilize The Right Mix of Platforms
Emerging technologies such as 5G are typically more popular amongst younger audiences, which means it will be important to leverage the power of social media to engage with them. Platforms like Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn are effective channels for showcasing the capabilities of 5G and creating buzz around related products or services. And though social is a clear path to many, don’t forget about other audio, digital, video, email, print and text options. No matter what the age, cultural segment or income level, all audiences consume content through a variety of medium. A full multichannel marketing strategy, using the appropriate mix of channels based on your audience preferences, must be a key part of your plan.
PRO- TIP: Once you determine the best audience(s), seek out what content they are interested in, as well as what media and when they are most likely to be consuming it. For instance (using the categories above), Plugged-In Families often listen to TV and film podcasts and shop at Gap Kids on-line. However, Bundled Burbs stream on Direct TV and listen to child and family related podcasts, while Kids and Keyboards often use internet/apps to seek out parenting and family advice. Think about using Claritas’ AI Personalization to help you develop and deliver the right content to the right people.
Educational Content
Many consumers may not fully grasp the implications of 5G. Develop educational content, such as blog posts, infographics, or explainer videos, to inform your audience about the technology and its impact on their daily lives.
PRO-TIP: It is important to not completely discount more mature segments. These often make the most loyal customers once the benefits are completely understood. Develop educational content directed at these key targets, prioritizing reliability and service, and then determine the best medium for delivery of ads.
Create Interactive Experiences
Take advantage of 5G’s low latency to create immersive and interactive experiences. This could include virtual reality (VR) or augmented reality (AR) campaigns that showcase the capabilities of 5G in a memorable way. And, given that 5G is fundamentally a mobile technology, ensure that your marketing assets and website are optimized for mobile devices. Fast-loading, visually appealing content will enhance the user experience.
PRO-TIP: You have segmented your audience for campaign targeting and developed a multi-channel, interactive marketing strategy to accomplish your goals. The next step is to create a plan to accurately measure the impact your audiences and campaign tactics have on delivering against your KPI’s. Whether those include an increase in leads, visits to your website, sales conversions, or all of these, it’s important that you have a plan for continually optimizing those campaigns in-flight. Check out Claritas’ Multichannel Measurement & Attribution solutions.
As 5G continues to roll out globally, it presents unparalleled opportunities for businesses to connect with their audience in innovative ways. By understanding the unique features of 5G and tailoring your marketing strategies to resonate with your target customers, you can position your brand at the forefront of this transformative wave of technology. Working with Claritas, we can help you not only accurately and efficiently determine your best audiences, but deliver the right messages to the right people using the right channels. We can further help you optimize your results with our fully transparent attribution measurement solution. Stay agile, stay informed, and ride the 5G wave to a future where connectivity knows no bounds.