Note: This post was originally published on the Get More Engagement blog.

Does your organization seek to reach digital marketers? If you answered “yes,” then have a look at the latest Social Insights report from Leadtail and PunchTab: “How Digital Marketers Engage on Twitter”

Why is this report so useful? As the person leading my company’s content marketing efforts, I try (very hard) to reach the digital marketer.

But the digital marketer is elusive!

It’s 2014… Do You Know Where Your Target Audience Is?

Earlier this year, we performed a research study of marketers at mid-sized companies. One of the findings surprised me:

79% of marketing executives say it’s a challenge to get (and hold) the attention of target customers, and 72% say it’s difficult to find their target audiences online.

If you’re looking to reach digital marketers, then your challenge is to find where they spend their time online, and break through the endless stream of other media seeking their attention (e.g. tweets, blog posts, emails, Instagram photos and more).

Here’s five tips that I gleaned from the research that can help you (and me!) reach the elusive digital marketer.

1. Create Campaigns Related to Events

What do you see in this tag cloud? I see a lot of consumer-oriented, mainstream events:

Sochi Olympics
Valentine’s Day
Oscars
Super Bowl
Earth Day

Digital marketers are cut from the same cloth as everyone else: we follow the Olympics, root for our teams in the Super Bowl (though the “Brand Bowl” may be a bigger event for marketers) and watch the Oscars. To reach the elusive digital marketer, tie some of your content or campaigns to mainstream events.

You could start with a blog post, then proceed to an email marketing campaign. For instance, the “Email Marketing Olympics,” in which your readers vote on the email marketing best practices that should be awarded gold medals.

Are you a cloud hosting provider? Then “the lights always stay on in the cloud” could be your parallel to Oreo’s “you can still dunk in the dark.” Don’t discount the fact that a single tweet could get favorited and retweeted so much that 1,000+ digital marketers come to discover your brand. In a matter of minutes!

2. Make Your Website Mobile Ready

As the call-out in this chart notes: if you want digital marketers to share your content, “better make sure it’s optimized for mobile!” For me, “your content” begins and ends with your website. Based on whom you ask, buyers are completing 40-65+% of the sales cycle before engaging with sales.

This chart indicates that digital marketers are sharing content on social media from their mobile devices. It would follow, then, that they’re using those same devices to research products and services. If your website is not mobile-ready, then you’re missing an opportunity to engage your customer and shorten the sales cycle.

You can forget about your visitors “engaging with sales.” Your visitors will leave, seek out competitive products and services and never return.

If you’re serving up the same experience across desktop, tablet and smartphone, then your competition may be eating your lunch. Make the investment (this month or this quarter) to optimize your site’s experience for mobile. The approach I recommend is called responsive web design.

3. Establish Your Target List for Earned Media Coverage

This is the “easiest win” from the report. Want to know the publications digital marketers read, share, and amplify the most? The report gives you sorted lists, with the top 50 publications listed.

If digital marketers are retweeting the tweets from Mashable, Fast Company and AdAge, then chances are they respect those publications. And, they’re probably reading their coverage.

If you want your recent product announcement to make an impact with digital marketers, then hand this Top 50 list to your PR firm. If you’re doing your own PR, then follow these 50 publications (on Twitter), observe the content they’re sharing and begin to map out the landscape of contributing authors, editorial contacts, etc.

These days, it’s easier than ever to strike up a dialog with a reporter from a mainstream media site (e.g. Wall Street Journal).

4. Identify New Platforms to Publish and Distribute Your Content

Not every organization has a YouTube channel. But when you consider that YouTube is the world’s second largest search engine, it’s high time to re-consider. Combine that with the fact that the report found YouTube the number one most-shared social source among digital marketers and I’d call this a “done deal.”

Don’t get yourself stuck in this trap: “I can’t afford a studio-based video shoot, so I’ll hold off on video content.” Digital marketers, especially those in B2B, aren’t expecting Hollywood productions. Shoot 5 minutes from your iPhone, then edit down to a 2 minute video in iMovie and it’s just as good. And if it’s really good, chances are digital marketers will share it.

Among this Top 15 list, other channels I’d encourage you to consider include LinkedIn (e.g. publish posts there, along with status updates) and SlideShare (e.g. tell stories and re-publish webinar presentations).

5. Identify and Engage with Influencers

What’s a retweet from Jay Baer (@jaybaer) worth? That might be hard to quantify, but as the person most retweeted by digital marketers, suffice it to say that RT would reach a fair amount of digital marketers. This is another “easy win” – leverage these Top 50 People Most Retweeted and Top 50 People Most Mentioned lists – they’re ready-made influencer lists for you (and the rest of the Marketing team).

Follow them, see what they’re tweeting about and engage with them. Comment on their posts, reply to their tweets and retweet them, too. (I’ve written more about how to engage influencers on Twitter on the DNN Blog.)

Now It’s Your Turn

The typical digital marketer juggles projects, manages multiple campaigns and is constantly online. You’d think that connecting with these digital marketers would be like finding the needle in a haystack. It is challenging, but it’s not quite that difficult.

The more you can understand the behaviors and motivations of your target audience (e.g. reading reports like this one from Punchtab/Leadtail), the better your chances of attracting their attention. Rest assured, digital marketers are out there and they’re waiting to engage with you. Go make it happen.

Download the full report: How Digital Marketers Engage on Twitter