Dayparting for Mobile

Time sensitive marketing

By Erica Rascón on Nov 20, 2013 in Marketing

Imagine that you’re home on a sick day with nothing but cable and a box of Kleenex to keep you company. What’s on TV? Between shows, you’ll see a slew of worker compensation ads, LifeAlert  and Hoveround commercials, and online classes that promise you a better future. You don’t see as many of those commercials when you’re normally home in the evening. Those advertisements are targeted to people who are generally home during the day: people who aren’t working, the elderly, the unemployed, and stay-at-home parents. Those commercials show dayparting at work, a marketing technique that is just as important to your mobile marketing strategy as it is for television.

Dayparting refers to parting the day into sections and then tailoring your marketing plan accordingly. Arbiton, an American audience measurement ratings service, created a five-section day.

• morning drive time (6–10am)
• midday (10am–3pm)
• afternoon drive (3–7pm),
• evenings (7:00pm–Midnight)
• and overnight (Midnight–6am)

Each phase of the day is a distinct opportunity to reach your audience. It’s about sending the right message at the right time, which means you won’t be sending the same message to everyone all of the time. This marketing approach is light years better than static billboards and significantly better than your best-conceived commercial or online banner.

To create your gameplan, ask yourself a few basic marketing questions (again) in greater detail.

To Whom

Dayparting offers hyper-local, extremely customized marketing experiences for consumers. To reap the greatest rewards, think about disparate subgroups within your audience base. An athletics supplier, for example, might consider text ads for teenage girls after school hours or in-app ads for young adultmales right before bedtime as they’re winding down for the day. The more that you understand even the smallest group in your demographic, the better your chances of reaching it.

• Who is my audience?
• Does my audience change throughout the day? How so?
• Do I offer particular products and services that are better marketed at different times of day, or to different groups within a day?
• How do I want this group to react? (e.g. visit mobile site, click and buy)

When

When depends largely upon your product and your consumers. Flurry Analytics survey reveals that peak mobile usage hours are between 6pm and 10pm for Americans on iOS. A large spectrum of American adults have free time after work and after school so they are likely to interact with a mobile device during this time—other companies know this as well. Consumers are bombarded with information during this time. Your efforts could get ignored in the shuffle. Finding a niche time to advertise can be even more powerful than following the herd.

It is important to note that dayparting time frames vary by country, which is something to keep in mind if your company has an international consumer base. In America, lunch time often falls between 11am-1pm. In Spain, however, the siesta break occurs between 2pm-5pm.  That’s a significant difference if you’re an international chain restaurant trying to reach working adults.

How

As you’ve likely figured out, how to approach dayparting depends entirely on your unique business and unique clients. The only hard and fast rule is to customize, customize, customize! Obtain detailed behavioral and trend data, then customize your approach accordingly.

With that said, spending gobs of cash is not how to do it. The research put into your dayparting plan will likely be your largest cost. Even still, when you’re able to reach the right people at the right time with the right message you’ll get greater and more consistent results. With a greater return on your investment, your ad spend per customer will be lower.

George Michie has a helpful article called 9 Keys to Successful Day-Parting. It’s a great starting point for anyone interested in how to create a dayparting plan. You may also keep the following in mind:

• Consider the device. Smartphones and tablets have relatively small screens. Bulky ads will be seen as a nuisance, not an opportunity. Be relevant and concise with your message to attract the right kind of attention.
• Avoid throwing cash at the time of day that sees the most traffic. Rather, focus on the time of day that offers the highest conversion rate (highest orders or sales per click).
• Build a strong relationship with a top-tier digital signage partner. These are the folks who will help your craft the perfect message and find the best way to deliver it. They can be your company’s best friends.