Marketing to Men in a Digital Age: What It Takes to Get Guys to Click
ScribbleLive hosted a chat on what it takes to get men to engage with content in a digital age. We were joined by Cory Jones, Senior Vice President, Digital Content for Playboy and Paul Ulane, Lead Editor for Mandatory.com. We discussed the types of content that men will click on (and share), myths about reaching men online, how advertisers can talk to men authentically and more.
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Cory JonesCory is the SVP of Digital Content at Playboy.com where he is currently hard at work on a revamp and relaunch. He has spent the last 13 years in the men's digital world, launching esteemed sites such as Mandatory.com and HolyTaco.com as well as running Maxim.com. He's pretty fun at parties, too.
Paul UlaneBefore landing at Mandatory.com, where he is the lead editor, Paul made stops at Maxim.com and SI.com, where he wrote about sports, pop culture and made the kind of memes kids these days can only dream about. He likes the Chicago Cubs and Twitter and talks to his cat, George, like he's a real person.1 of 2
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"Men are portrayed in a buffoonish, sophomoric way or as sensitive, feminized men," says Erv Frederick, head of Miller Lite brand development. "The bulk are somewhere in the middle, and those are men who haven't been spoken to." Ad company Leo Burnett Worldwide says that one survey found 79 percent of men do not recognize themselves in advertisements today.
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How to Appeal to Men Vs. Women in Advertising
Small Business - Chron.comUsing demographic information about your customer, you can target your advertising to appeal to men or women. Effective advertising requires that you go beyond simple male or female demographics. Why ... -
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It's almost more important to target each of your specific social audiences instead of just men. One thing that works on Facebook doesn't necessarily work on Twitter or Instagram. Once you figure out what resonates the most on every social channel, your content will be shared by the entire audience, which will in turn increase the number of men seeing that content.
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Who likes Facebook more: Men or Women?
Castleford MediaFacebook is a valuable content marketing tool, mainly for its ability to reach a wide range of online consumers. But is it better for targeting men or women? -
One topic that continues to resonate with our audience is relationship humor. Not only do the men in our audience relate to the male perspective but I think women enjoy seeing what's going through men's minds. Being relatable is more important than being funny. If people feel like you're touched on something they've experienced, they will definitely pass it along to their friends.
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It's less about topics than it is about the hook or the angle. For men's sites, you will get much more engagement if you give them a why or how instead of just the what. While girl content does well, there's a ceiling on it because users are less inclined to share something that might be considered NSFW. The content that does the best is the content that gives people a reason to click. By far the content that I have seen do the best (in terms of driving traffic) is someone getting their comeuppance. People on social media love seeing the villain get his/her due. Social media loves to get on its high horse.
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How do you find a target male audience for niche sites? For example I have a blog that deals with indie gamers who are bothered by the state of the mainstream industry. Not exactly a Facebook or Twitter situation since those fall back in the mainstream. What do I do then when I have excellent content but no audience and no clear social network to go to? It isn't the quality because I can take the same article as a guest to a larger site and get huge engagement. They just don't come back to my personal sites.
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I always say you can have the best site in the world, but if you're not getting in front of people it doesn't matter. You have to find a way to break through the white noise of the Internet. There are four main ways to drive traffic - SEO, Social, Direct and Partnerships. You have to pull all those levers to get consistent diverse engagement. I would work on your social and SEO first and then leverage some of that traffic to start partnerships with other likeminded sites who will bring users who are organically interested in your content which you can then turn into bookmarked/direct visits over time.
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“[The young male demo] was sort of the early digital audience, and now it’s just grown exponentially as time’s gone on,” says Believe Entertainment Group partner Danny Fishman. “It’s also obviously hugely important from a brand [partnership or ad sales] standpoint, because it’s always historically been a high-spend category [because they have] disposable income and not nearly as many fixed expenses as older demographics.”
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I always felt like that age bracket was an advertising construct. Most men don't totally change what they find funny or interesting when they hit 35. I think it goes back to what we said before about creating great content and the demographic will follow. At the end of the day, you have to ask yourself "do I find this funny?" If you're a guy over 20 and under 60, there's a decent chance if your answer is yes then you're headed in the right direction. Steer clear of enema listicles and you should be good.
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It seems that "content that men will click on" is painting with far too broad if a brush stroke. I'd say it's important never to stereotype, always get to know your audience, there are many other aspects to what they will want to hear (and how they like it presented) aside from gender, and so on. Even just thinking of age group in relation to male markets makes me think advertisers need to do a lot more than think about chromosomes if they want to reach them--or anyone--with authenticity (and they should). -
Agreed. And it's relatively easy to reach a younger demo online. The only disadvantage that bracket presents is as you grow your audience, more people from other demos (older, female, etc) start creeping in, which may skew your stats a little. But if that's the case, it just means your audience is growing too big to keep confined to one group, which should make everybody happy.
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Some of them are getting better, others still have a ways to go. The young male online can smell BS a mile away. The best ad campaigns are the ones that trust the content. The worst ones try to shoehorn themselves into every nook and cranny of a custom content piece. It's my view that if you're around great, sharable content that falls under the umbrella of the demo you're trying to hit, you'll be successful more often than not.
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Old Spice made a very obvious nod toward the traditional notion of advertising to males in this now famous spot by Wieden+Kennedy.
by Stephen Zorio via YouTube 6/10/2014 5:44:40 PM -
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When it comes to marketing products to men, it helps to play up how technologically advanced they are, says Jean-Pierre Dubé, a marketing professor at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. "Men love inscrutable jargon," he says. -- Marketplace.org feature on men's razor ads
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Woven
What Matters to Men. -
Complex | Style, Music, Sneakers, Entertainment, Girls, Technology
Complex Magazine: The original buyer's guide for men. -
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That's a great question. I think user engagement will become more important as social media and traditional sites converge. On a specific note, it's been interesting to see how fashion and style has evolved over the last 10 years. It used to be throwaway content for advertisers, but men are much more aware of how they dress and how they look than they were not too long ago. I think style will actually grow the way food has in the next year or two.
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Paul has already left us, but I want to thank he and Cory for joining us in the marketing to men chat today, it's been an illuminating chat to say the least. And thanks to everyone who joined us! Come back for our next chat on Thursday on the shortage of women in STEM fields.
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And a special thank you to our friends at Digital Journal for hosting this chat.
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What country do you work in? -
What is your role/job title at your company? -
What is your phone number (including country and area code)?
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What is your email address?I'd like to receive promotional emails.
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What is your first and last name?
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