Imagine you have launched a skincare product. You have invested in high-quality ingredients, well-designed packaging, and building a stunning eCommerce website. But your sales are slow. Why? Because you are trying to sell your products to everyone.
That is where targeted marketing comes in. You can not sell all types of products to everyone. Certain products or services are only for certain types of people. That is why you need to know what targeted marketing is, why it is important, and how to find the right audience. In this blog, you will get the complete guidelines for it.
What Is Targeted Marketing? Definition with Example
No matter what business you are in, success depends on knowing who your customers are. Without a clear audience, you can not create an effective strategy. Not every product is for everyone—just like medical products are meant for those with a condition, or luxury shoppers will not seek budget items in a random supermarket.
Targeted marketing focuses on reaching the right people by segmenting them based on age, gender, income, behavior, and more. To succeed, you must understand who your product or service is for and how to market it effectively.
For example, the popular shoe brand Nike makes their products based on the specific needs of their consumers. Their products are mostly specific for athletes and based on their needs, they segment the product and sell it. This segmentation helped them to build a globally popular brand among young athletes.
Why Is Targeted Marketing Important?
You already know that targeted marketing is important for a business to thrive. But specifically, what outcome does it bring? If you already have a business or are planning to start one, in every part of the business, this marketing tactic is important. In this section, you will learn more about it.
Get High Return on Investment
One of the key reasons for targeted marketing is the money well invested in the right audience. Instead of making campaigns for a broad, general audience, a segmented audience is more likely to engage and purchase the product. This will help to make a more personalized message, improve the response rate and reduce wasted costs.
As the marketing efforts have matched customers’ needs, interests and behavior, it leads to a high conversion rate. This also increases the chances of repeated purchases leading to strong brand loyalty. As a result, acquisition costs are reduced as retaining existing customers is more cost-effective than attracting new ones.
Build Brand Loyalty
Customers love a brand that knows them and feels their needs. Worldwide popular brands understand their customers very well. Based on their understanding, they design and market the product. That is how brand loyalty is built.
In targeted marketing, the core principle is to know the customer. Understanding customers and their needs helps brands grow by building loyalty and increasing repeat purchases. That is why, to build a loyal customer base, it is important to maintain targeted marketing.
Boost Customer Retention
With knowing customers, it is also crucial to maintain proper communication. Customers love it when products or services value their time. This also increases the chance of repeat customers. If you know what type of communication method your customers like, then it becomes easier for you to retain them.
By knowing the target audience, their needs, and communication methods, it becomes easier to retain them. This retention is only possible if your business knows for whom you are promoting the products and services. That is why it is important to know targeted marketing.
Audience Segmentation to Look for in Targeted Marketing
Since the importance of targeted marketing is essential for businesses, it is also necessary to know how to segment them. Based on only one criterion, you cannot set the target customer. You have to know proper segmentation. Usually, businesses segment their customers into four parts. In this section, you will know the details about it.
Demographic Segmentation
First, you have to segment the demographics of your customers. This segmentation is basic information about the customers. This information includes:
- Gender
- Age
- Income
- Education
- Occupation
- Family Size
- Religion
- Marital Status
The main idea for demographic segmentation is to identify these common traits of customers. For example, a premium clothing brand targets customers who have a certain income level.
Geographic Segmentation
While demographic segmentation represents the basic information about a customer, geographic segmentation is more location-centric. This segmentation includes customers –
- Country
- City
- Region
- Climate
- Population
This segmentation helps to identify if the product or service will be suitable based on the geographic conditions. For instance, Dominos Pizza brings variations in their pizza flavor based on location, such as you will not find “Indi Chicken Tikka pizza” in the US, since chicken tikka is one of the popular foods in India.
Psychographic Segmentation
Another important segmentation is psychographics, which represents the personality characteristics of the customer. This includes –
- Attitudes
- Hobbies
- Beliefs
- Lifestyles
- Goals
For businesses, it helps to understand how people might react to certain types of products. For example, Apple uses psychographic segmentation to attract customers who value innovation, creativity and a premium experience. So they keep cutting-edge technology and sleek designs on their products.
Behavioral Segmentation
This type of segmentation helps businesses to understand the customers’ purchasing behavior. Here, it includes customers –
- Purchasing Behavior
- Brand Loyalty
- Intent to Buy
Based on the different behaviors, it becomes easy for businesses to set their marketing strategy. For instance, eCommerce businesses can provide discounts, exclusive offers, or free shipping for customers based on their purchasing behavior.
How to Find the Right Target Audience
Understanding the importance of a target audience and its different segments is key to effective targeted marketing. But how do you identify your audience, especially as a new business? We will explore this in detail here.
Conducting Market Research
Proper market research can make your business launch faster and easier. Once you have identified the target market through proper research, you will be able to strategize your marketing efforts. Now, how to do that research? There are several ways to do that.
- Surveys: Based on different questionnaires about your product, you can create a survey form and send it to your potential customers. Questionnaires can be about buyers’ interests and dislikes about certain products or services, etc.
- Focus Groups: This means that a group of people discuss or talk about certain products. Through this discussion, it is easier to understand the product and what they think about it.
- Competitor Analysis: One of the best ways to do market research is to look at the competitors. What competitors are doing and to whom they are promoting their products is the best way to understand the target audience. Looking at customers’ social profiles and websites is a better way to do the analysis.
Creating Customer Personas
A customer persona detailed, semi-fictional representation of your ideal customer based on research, data, and insights. A buyer persona is important to better understand customers’ needs, preferences, and pain points to create more effective marketing campaigns.
Demographics, psychographics, behavioral traits, and profession are key components of a buyer persona. A smartwatch company can create its buyer persona by talking about a young professional who is very careful about their fitness, but struggling to balance work, fitness, and personal life and whose main motivation is to stay active despite their work schedule.
A/B Testing
Another effective method is doing an A/B test. A/B test means testing different versions of a specific campaign, copy, or content. A similar thing can be done for analyzing the target audience. Through A/B testing you can try out different versions of products or types of services to different audiences.
Through collecting different data, you can measure which type performed well or the customers might like. There you can understand the choices of your target audience and know your customers more deeply.
5 Effective Target Marketing Strategies That Your Business Should Try
Now since you have got a comprehensive idea about your target market, you have to know about the effective marketing strategies that your business should try for this audience. It will vary based on the needs and behavior of your audience. However, some common effective strategies have been trendy in recent years. Here you will have a look at some of these strategies.
Choosing the Right Platforms
Depending on your product and audience, you must choose the right platform to promote your products. If your target audience consists of young professionals, social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok will be suitable options. On the other hand, if your audience consists of elderly people, television commercials or print media ads can be the best choice.
Personalized Messaging And Offers
People love a brand that understands their needs and communicates in a personalized tone. Based on their language, promoting a product or service is an effective solution. For example, GenZ talks in a different tone, which you should not use with the millennials. The same goes for different offers. Some customers get hyped up about discounts, but others might be attracted to VIP or exclusive offers.
Automation in Audience Targeting
Nowadays, the majority of organizations choose automated tools or systems that make their process smoother and faster. In audience targeting, you can utilize it for your business as well. To analyze large datasets in real-time to identify patterns, behaviors, and preferences so that marketers can create a highly refined target audience. For example, Google and Meta ads use AI to suggest audience segments and optimize ad delivery based on previous engagement.
Community Building and Engagement
If you know who your audience is, then it becomes easier for you to create a community. In this age, it is pretty easy to build this community. For example, in social media, you can create a Facebook group where you can add your audience. There you will find different types of people with different opinions and by communicating, you can uncover a lot of insights. This engagement will create brand loyalty and give a personalized feeling to your audience.
Loyalty & Referral Programs
Repeated purchasing customers are satisfied with your products. But if a new competitor comes up with a better product, then your repeat customers might switch. To prevent this, give value to your loyal customers. Give them discounts, coupons or any other offers. To enhance your customer base, create referral programs where by referring your products, your customers will get exclusive offers. This will help you to get a more segmented audience and build brand loyalty over time.
Grow Your Business the Right Way for the Right Audience
To make a successful business plan, it is important to better understand your audience. That is why you should know all about things that are necessary to know about the target market. This will help you create a better and successful business plan.
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