What happen’s on your birthday? Aside from some treats (I hope), do you make some different decisions? What if it was your 29th, or 39th birthday? would that matter?
If you’re looking to get into people’s lives, looking at your fans and participants birthdays may be surprisingly valuable.
I’ve mentioned we are studying the influence of important things like time, people and places on what we do.
Why? Well the more we can influence things like time, the more we will achieve with our events, and in our lives.
The different seasons of our lives present different opportunities, and we know what we do is influenced by temporal landmarks (dates on the calendar). This applies to universal dates that we all recognise like the new year, and also for personal landmark dates, like new jobs, new terms, and our birthdays.
For example, like that spike in Google searches for gyms and diet info at the start of a year, or even every new week, we also have personal ‘fresh starts’. That is, gym searches go up the day after people’s birthdays.
Do you connect with your audience on their birthday? And when they get a new job? These are influential phases in their lives, where new habits are established. So it is a good time to be in their lives!
Bucket lists & the ‘9ers
You will know all the demographics of your audience, but what if their age also means something more? Looking at what time it is in the lives of your audience can provide surprising results.
If you’re a marathon promoter, or any aspirational ‘bucket list event’, you may want to know about an interesting study by social psychologist Adam Alter. In his research of marathoners, Adam identified “9-enders”, people in the last year of a life decade (19, 29, 39 etc…) pushed themselves to do something new.
They found that in first time marathoners, “9-enders” were overrepresented by an amazing 48%.And 29 year olds were twice as likely to run as when they were 28 or 30 years old!
This is just one example of what research may tell us about the influence of the time of our lives, on what we do, and don’t, do.
A good time to be around
It is worth thinking about where your audience may be in their lives, and look at your data, as there may be times you will have more influence than others. And it may be you should focus your efforts on a particular time of your audiences lives.
When I worked with Nike, they identified that young women around the age of 17-20 were making big life choices, some of which would last for many years. As their research (and results) showed, this was an important time of to be present in the lives of women, and in hopefully positively influencing their lives, this would establish a stronger and longer connection between the brand and consumer.
More on that here…
We know all our strategies should be based on insights, as we know knowledge is power.
And when this is combined with timing, the effect is even more influential.
Insights are powerful. And timing is everything.
I believe understanding time is interesting and valuable. It is one of the ‘Elements of Influence’ we are focused on as we create strategies for better results with your events.
So if I can help you create more influential events, just let me know.