by Jeff Lindstrom, ECHO Digital Solutions
Marketing your brand, product, or service can often require a sizable financial investment. Because of this, it’s important to make sure you set yourself up for success. Understanding who you are marketing to helps minimize risk and allows you to reach people in the most cost-effective way possible. By developing a specific audience to market to, you’ll typically have much more success than broader campaigns. Here are a few important points to consider when you are developing your target audience.
Who are your existing customers? This segment of people is often overlooked by small business owners. By understanding who already is using your products or services, you’ll be able to identify similar characteristics that can be used in a marketing campaign. Additionally, if you have first-party data from your customers, like an email or phone number, you can create look-a-like audiences on popular marketing platforms like Facebook. This helps your campaign reach people who are similar to customers you already have.
Create Your Ideal Customer. Getting super clear on the ideal customer is critical for any marketing campaign. By creating this customer avatar and mapping their purchasing journey, you’ll be able to tailor messaging and other creative that speaks directly to them. Some points to consider when building this avatar are:
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Location (local, national or international)
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Demographics (age, gender, occupation, income level, marital status)
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Interests & Behaviors (values, hobbies, lifestyle, personality, attitude, etc)
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Customer’s buying habits
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Personality type (persona) and pain points
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Motivations
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Market trends
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Competition
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Other brand affinities
Conduct Market Research. By clearly identifying the areas you are marketing to, you can fine-tune your strategy to be as effective as possible. If you are a local service-based business, the market research of course would be in the area your business is located. However, if you run an e-commerce website that sells nationwide, you may have several markets that require different strategies.
Many businesses make the mistake of investing in marketing campaigns that do not have a specific audience and do not have a clear measure of success. By defining a target audience and establishing key performance indicators to define the success of a campaign, you’ll be able to effectively measure your return on investment from the campaign.
If you need help with marketing strategy, contact Echo Digital Solutions today!
