Audience development is the practice of attracting people with different tastes and preferences towards specific social objects. This practice is widely used by sales and marketing teams to acquire new customers and retain the existing ones. For the practice to function effectively, there must be a director who develops, monitors and coordinators all the activities of the team, including the strategies they use. This post will shed more light on the specific duties of this director.
Initiate Partnerships
The director is responsible for all the initiatives and activities that target other organizations and individuals for partnerships. He discusses and develops deals with the partners and works to maintain relationships. These partners may include digital influencers, social media marketers and media publishers. He also oversees the development of joint platforms to help enhance the distribution and growth of content.
Provide Industry Insights
An audience development director uses his sound knowledge of the industry trends and statistics to continually provide insights and evaluate the new digital and social platforms within an organization. He coordinates all training activities to ensure other employees are up-to-date with the new industry trends and developments. He also ensures that the company observes best practices in digital publishing space.
Report and Analyze Data
The director is the chief interpreter of information collected from different databases. He analyzes such information and develops actionable steps for product development and enhancement. He also establishes an aggressive growth plan and develops data reporting standards to help improve the making of daily and long-term decisions.
Develop Content Marketing Strategies
A development director works with the editorial and tech team to develop content marketing strategies and share insights in regards to content development. His main goal here is to champion best practices that will ensure fruitful audience growth and engagement.
Develop Social Media Strategies
The director is responsible for developing and implementing comprehensive social media strategies to ensure effective distribution of content across different platforms. He also coordinates various experiments to improve social media best practices and manages auditors who run various social media accounts within the organization.
Other Duties
Other duties of the director include providing insights to help manage email newsletters, optimize performance and grow the subscription base. He also determines how to incorporate best SEO practices into editorial workflow and product development. In some occasions, the director may be called upon by the management to determine the most strategic use of paid marketing accounts as well as manage various marketing programs.
Essential Skills
For one to succeed as an expert in developing audiences, he must have a deep understanding of Google Analytics and advanced enterprise email customer relationship management tools. He should have extensive knowledge of digital media, considerable experience with quantitative tools and the ability to build relevant reports. Most employers want at least three years of experience in paid marketing, SEO, partnerships, email marketing and digital media. Passion for tracking tools and the ability to work closely with a creative team is an added advantage.
Working as an expert in developing an audience is a potentially rewarding experience you will never live to regret. You will work in different facets of an organization to oversee the development of digital media strategies, provide insights and initiate partnerships. You will also need certain skills in order to excel as an audience development director.
