5 easy steps to engage your target audience

Every marketer has to answer an important question:

How do we best engage our target audience?

Let me share five easy tips that have helped adidasneo become an engaging lifestyle brand.

We implemented these tips in our #nowiseverything campaign that resonated quite strongly with our NEOlovers.

I’ll let the numbers do the talking:

• During the first phase of the campaign, 8K consumer photos were submitted to Instagram
• a total of 107K campaign hashtag mentions were generated across Twitter and Instagram.
• On launch day #NOWISEVERYTHING trended on Twitter 3 times in Germany and in other markets.
• And our community grew by 32K.

How did we do it? Here’s our strategy

1. Allow for emotional experiences

For consumers to connect with our brand it’s not just important that they see and hear about our products, but that they experience our brand on an emotional level and share this experience with their friends.

adidasneo is the teenager of the adidas family. We are always there, day and night with NEOlovers around the world. We’ve established strong emotional connections that our NEOlovers actually say “good night” to us via social media.

READ ALSO: How Reebok creates remarkable Social Media experiences.

2. Understand what drives our target audience

NEOlovers are roughly 17 years old, and they live for the NOW. They change, all the time; are trying new things, finding things out and learning as they go. They are showing who they are for the first time on their own and as a group.

Teens are different than adults and this needs to be reflected in our strategy.

3. Feel the passion and it will be mirrored by your target audience

Working with teens on a daily basis, whether it be with the bloggers and models on shoot or through our social channels, there is a contagious energy that rubs off on the adidasneo team. When we are really excited and passionate about a project, this is then mirrored by our teens, and vice versa.

Our #NOWISEVERYTHING activation is all about the passion of living life to the fullest.

4. Invite consumers to become part of the magic

We invited our consumers to play an active role in experiencing the brand by submitting their own ‘Now is Everything’- moment via social media platforms. The activation was open for two weeks. We asked consumers to send in content from 8 challenges for a chance to be featured in a user generated adidasneo video. In short: we gave them the opportunity to co-create our NEO campaign video with us.

The biggest challenge is always getting the first NEOlover to be brave enough to share their own content. After the first one, the others usually follow, and all of a sudden any fear or embarrassment is just gone, and our teens get really creative and confident with their submissions.

5. Make the activation last

This campaign is only the start of a year full of great and engaging activations internally known as “The Year of the NEOlover,” putting the adidasneo consumers at the heart of everything the brand does and inviting them in.

Creating campaigns for our NEOlovers and seeing their immediate response is an incredible experience in my job. Working on campaigns from start to finish in all different facades including creative, photoshoots, events and even closely working with our brand heroes gives me the variety that keeps me so hooked to what I do!

Read Also: Anna works together with Alyce Menzel, Asst. Social Media and Community Manager, adidasneo. Working and interacting so closely with consumers must be an exciting job indeed. Find out why Alyce’s current favourite hashtag is #ilovemyjob.