In 2018 we have the largest audiences ever at our disposal, yet it can still be hard to get our content in front of the right people.
The Internet has brought the democratisation of media in one way, and a mess of noise in another. We can all make and post content, but there is so much content it can be hard to break through.

When my career in media began I was lucky enough to join a company willing to experiment to figure out exactly what would stick. And we threw a lot at the wall. It was a publishing house full of niche brands, and what I learned about audiences and how to cater for them was invaluable.

There’s various ways to address it, but above all consistent content should be talking to the right audience, which is not necessarily the biggest one. It doesn’t mean you have to start that way. You can take a broad approach, assuming that within the large initial audience you’ll find enough people to engage with you long-term. Those people who become regular viewers will be the base of your true audience.

This approach has worked for a lot of content creators and brands; put out something that has the potential to go viral to plant your brand’s flag in the consciousness of potential viewers or customers. A favourite example of a successful and functional viral video is Dollar Shave Club’s magnificent Our Blades Are F***ing Great video.

Here we see a mind tuned to traditional advertising leverage the power of the Internet with incredible results. The net was cast wide, sure to catch a lot of new customers. But they knew one thing: their customers are a broad base… men who shave. That’s a lot of people, so broad appeal would likely see new customers sign up.

That video was viewed more than 20 million times. Their regular uploads sit more in the 1,000-15,000 range, because that’s the normal viewing levels for a shaver delivery service. It’s not a bad thing, whatsoever. A regular audience is a healthy audience, and a healthy audience is there for you and your content, not just some laughs. Unless laughs are your content, in which case they’re probably there for those.

If you’re a bit more niche, you’d want to follow up any broadside attack with some highly targeted content that will ensure anyone who found you through your more generalised content will stay. Putting it another way, your regular content shouldn’t try to constantly rake in the biggest audience possible — just the right one. Your audience. Say you’re a golfing brand. It’s a great idea to bolster your regular content with something special that has broader appeal, but if you stick to it you’ll likely lose the audience who engage with you. 10,000 regular viewers are healthier for a brand, and more useful for targeting, than 10 million views with the occasional click on everything else.

If you’re a content producer who aims to rely on advertising audience health — predictable and regular viewership and demographics — is the core to matching with brands.

If you want to take your brand into the world of branded content, things get a little trickier (and fun!). You want to advertise without appearing to advertise, so you have to entertain or inform in a manner that connects you to your audience — taking whatever your brand does and turning its spirit into genuinely consumable video. We’ll talk about that more later in The Scratch.

Joshua Lundberg is a Writer and Director at Barking Mouse®, and co-Founder along with Producer Georgia Woodward. Together they create films, web series as well as commercial and corporate content for clients.