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I was with a group of savvy bankers yesterday discussing the Web and social media, among other things. Another great group of people expressing the same frustrations and questions regarding wrapping their heads around digital marketing and how they can use digital channels to effectively reach consumers.
We got to the social media part of the discussion and I heard the typical comments, like “…none of my friends are on Twitter.” This may be true, but one thing that’s important to consider is that there’s a good chance that our friends don’t fit into any of our target audience segments.
Considerations for Target Audience Research
To ensure that your marketing efforts are relevant and optimized for specific target audiences, there are a several things you need to carefully consider:
Demographics – this is a term often used to group members of your audience together into a ‘segment’. Very often, these segments relate to age, gender, and income levels. Careful research here can help you align the demographics of your target market segments with specific marketing channels and help maximize ad spend.
Psychographics – consumer attitudes and tendencies may not always align with demographic data. For example, my neighbor’s 11 year-old son is a Harley Davidson enthusiast and has some great Harley accessories, but he’s not buying a Harley anytime soon. Harley enthusiasts could be 16 or 60. The more you know about the lifestyles of your target audience, the more you can tailor your marketing message.
Content Consumption Preferences – our loyalty is to the content, not the delivery mechanism. Important factors to consider here include: What are their favorite sources of info? What influences them? What’s the best single source of info they can tap? This will help you when considering strategic partners, tools, and channels. How about the target audience’s attitude toward the competitor’s content (they’re only a click away)?
Content Creation Preferences – what kind of content is your target audience creating…right now? What photo sites do they use to upload their pix? What kind of blogs do they create? Are they already engaged in blogs about your product category, your brand, or those of your competitors? Monitoring conversations out there about your brand (and your competitor’s brand, too) is an important part of your strategy. Here’s a list of tools to get you started.
Channels – based on your research above, you then choose the right channels to reach your audience. It’s critical to do the research first, then choose the channel(s). If you put the cart before the horse here, you risk spending money on a channel that may not resonate with or be used by your target audience.
Measurement – while not something needed for developing your target audience metrics, I wanted to include measurement here because it’s so important. When considering the measurement of marketing effectiveness, there are numerous factors involved, and it’s difficult to pinpoint what metrics a company should be using to define and track ROI. However, starting with a strong set of quantifiable goals makes it easier to develop KPIs for measuring results. For example, saying you want more visitors to your website isn’t the same as setting a goal to increase unique visitors by 30% over a 3 month period.
What are you doing to figure out who your target audience is and the best way to reach them? I’d love to hear from you.