In this digital era it is clear that we all still need to belong – to find a tribe we feel safe in and with whom we can share any insecurities.

Tribes are nothing new of course – and I don’t mean the Sioux and the Apache.

Tribal marketing is a way of categorising a target audience. It has long served us marketers well in defining behaviours, attitudes and trigger points when trying to formulate messages which appeal to potential customers on behalf of a certain brand or product.

At a client meeting this week it became very clear why this need to categorise our target groups is still as important, if not more important, than ever. Understanding that a product can appeal to a wide ranging audience allows us to produce ‘tribal’ campaigns where the attitudes and needs of each tribe are met with differing benefits.

In the case of this highly influential fashion brand, the tribes range dramatically through life stage, reason for purchase and attitude to price, but one thing remains true to all – they love the product. So understanding the target audience and their trigger points allows us to define a suitable message, the story to be told and the relevant calls to action.

I was reminded just yesterday when looking at web analytics on another client where this approach had been particularly well used, that creating engaging content made a difference of over 400 per cent on the dwell time on a website, caused a 900 per cent decrease in bounce rate (the amount of people who simply click away when they arrive at your site) and an increase of over 500 per cent interactivity with their social media activity. A powerful story if ever there was one.

So we will set about understanding these tribes better and this can only lead to better communication, timed to be appropriate to the group and to tell a story that will engage beyond a simple click through journey on an e-commerce site.