I was recently chatting about a new campaign, and I had to share it with you. Wendy’s – yes, the fast-food giant named after Dave Thomas’ red-haired daughter – recently published their very own Dungeons and Dragons campaign, and it’s absolutely brilliant. Not just because DnD is a blast (if you’re hatin’, roll for initiative), but because it taps into something fantastic about niche marketing. So, special thanks to Wendy’s for giving me an awesome idea to jump off from to help marketers learn how to do branding for niche audiences.
Your party has acquired the Enchantment of Branding!
A sales expert and a branding expert walk into a pub.
The sales expert wants to sell a widget to every person in the room who needs to buy a widget.
The branding expert wants every person in the room to think about his widgets, whether they need to buy one or not.
As marketers, it’s our job to create markets – create an opportunity where a buyer and a seller will make a deal. And if all we care about is deal, the sales expert should be the star in our show.
Branding works differently. Branding isn’t a company selling widgets – it’s your pal, Brandon, who tells great jokes, always brings peach cobbler when he comes over, and who also happens to sell widgets for a living.
Consider these two folks now, the Widget Sales Expert and Brandon. When you need widgets, and you have a Brandon in your life, who are you going to want to buy a widget from?
That’s branding. It’s your business, transformed into your pal down the street. Or transformed into your good-with-money friendly banker, or your knowledgeable-about-the-law attorney. It’s an attempt to trigger emotional responses in buying that reflect how you feel when buying from someone you know.
Who is your niche and what do they do?
A niche audience is a small subset of your total audience, defined by one or more pretty-specific aspects. Take your whole audience, find a group with something they’re all passionate about, and there’s a niche.
Marketing is all about knowing your audience so well that you can communicate with them how they wanted to be communicated with. With niches, you’re defining the audience by a topic that they like to communicate about, so a big chunk of your work is done. Now, it’s up to you to talk to that audience.
Remember, people who buy from the sales expert often buy from the nearest, or cheapest, or flashiest sales expert at the moment – which means the sales expert we talked about earlier might not always get the next sale. But Brandon buyers buy from Brandon.
Wendy’s enters the dungeon.
Dungeons and Dragons is a table-top role-playing game with a whole lot of dice and an extremely loyal following. Instead of a re-usable board, players use a book to learn their story, and their own decisions and luck to move that story along.
If you’re a fast food brand, the DnD audience definitely doesn’t make up all your audience, probably not even half. But in terms of sizeable chunks, there’s no question that several tens of thousands of Frosty eaters also enjoy fighting imaginary Orcs.
Here’s the thing about fast food – you’re not buying it all day long. With our sales expert, people buying is the most important part of the equation. But not for Brandon. See, Brandon sells widgets by not always selling widgets. He goes to your house, hangs out, shares his cobbler, and when you need to buy a widget, Brandon is where you turn.
So, we have a sizeable DnD audience, and Wendy’s wants to come hang out. Wendy’s isn’t concerned with selling Baconators or Dave’s Doubles – it just wants to chill on DnD night. But since we can’t send Wendy directly into everyone’s kitchen, a team of creative marketers came up with a very clever idea instead.
Bring outstanding peach cobbler.
This marketing program is awesome because it’s great. Like, in actual DnD terms, it’s a solid campaign. The Wendy’s story is well written, the surprises are fun and well-thought-out, and the big-bad final boss is none other than Ronald McDonald. It’s clever, it’s classy, it’s funny (sorry Ronald) and it’s relevant to the brand.
To reach niche audiences, you need to bring Brandon’s awesome peach cobbler. See, niches are defined by a passion, and niche audiences can often tell a faker. Imagine if Brandon showed up with lousy peach cobbler for a group of cobbler aficionados. In that situation, Brandon isn’t a genuine cobbler fan, he’s an imposter, and the cobbler fans might not give him the business come widget buying time.
Player 2 has entered the game.
I was really into marching band in school, and I’m still a big fan of the niche activity today. Every August, Drum Corps International – the closest thing to professional marching band – does its multi-day Finals event. That same week, my Facebook feed lights up with marching band memes, videos, pictures and more. And for the last several years, another fast-food brand, Arby’s, has been included in that conversation.
Arby’s social media team seems to get the niche audience process. They produce loads of clever niche-focused content. For marching bands, that means showcasing Arby’s food performing on the football field. It’s consistently clever and relevant, and I always share some of their posts with my marching band brethren. And I almost always end up eating a Roast Beef Sandwich from Arby’s at some point during the week too!
If the future of marketing is personalization, then through strategic content and well-tuned targeting, Arby’s has figured out how to do that with their brand.
So what does this have to do with research?
Whether we’re talking fast food or widgets, remember that niches start out as insights.
No one opens up their marketing book on day 1 and says “I’m going to attract DnD players” or “Let’s attract that marching band audience!” Instead, they look at the bigger picture, ask questions, gather information, and learn that X% of the audience is defined by something specific. That’s a research-based insight.
How do you find your niche(s)? You do it by asking questions of the audience at large. You research, you study, you learn, and you make connections. And once you have that strategic component identified and understood, you can begin to develop great messaging, excellent content, and a meaningful strategy to tie it all together.
And just like that, with some data, thought, and a creative approach, you can enter the conversation of the audiences that matter to you.
When it comes to marketing, niches get pitches, because niches are the loyal customers you dream about. They may not buy from you every day, but when they buy, it’s from you. They don’t decide just on price or promotion, but emotion. That is how you develop a brand advocate and life-long customer.
So, what are you doing to identify your niche audience? If you want to create marketing that truly resonates, you need to find those insights, and S2 Research can help. Give us a call today, and let’s start learning more about your audience!
Special shout-out!
Special shout-out to my real-life DnD Dungeon Master from down the street, Brandon! It might be hard to find time to play, but I can’t wait until we all get together to run through the big Wendy’s campaign soon!