Marketing is all about getting the right message to the right people. The right people are the basis of every marketing strategy. As such, your target audience should be composed of the right people. You should be so sure of your audience that you can confidently push direct mail marketing with success.
But how do you isolate potential buyers from millions or billions of people in the market? These four tips are an insight into the latest and most effective techniques for identifying and defining target audiences.
1. Analyze Your Current Customers
What is your current customer base like? Do they share certain demographics and preferences? Collecting your current customers’ behavioral data will help give you an insight into your ideal target audience.
Experts recommend identifying your best customers’ characteristics and using them to build a persona of your ideal target audience. It is also advisable to break down the customer base into different segments, depending on differences in their characteristics. Using an RFM (recency, frequency, and monetary) analysis will help identify and differentiate their unique characteristics.
2. Analyze Your Competitors
Your direct competitors are targeting the same audience you are. To this end, an analysis of your competitors can give you valuable insights into your ideal audience target.
For starters, analyzing your competitors will reveal their current clientele base and targeted customers. You can then look into ways to convince their customers to switch to your brand – ideally by offering an overall better deal than the competition.
Additionally, analyzing your direct competitors marketing strategies will help reveal their neglected target audiences. Are there areas where they should be operating but are not? Is there something that you could do to fill these gaps? These are untapped markets, and it is a great way to expand your target audience.
3. Analyze Your Products/Services
What makes your customers choose your products/services over the competition’s offerings? Many marketing experts argue that understanding your product is the best way to identify the ideal target audience.
Understanding your products/services goes beyond knowing their basic features and workings. It entails understanding how the products/services affect their owners. Who would your products’ unique features and effects on the buyer suit best? That is your ideal target audience.
4. Conduct Thorough Market Research
Market research is necessary to narrow down your ideal target audience. It essentially entails refining the rough details and data you have already collected using the other techniques discussed above.
Use the vague idea of who your target audience is to conduct comprehensive market research. Narrow down on their demographics and psychographics. Define factors such as their ages, genders, occupations, studies, living locations, and more.
Your research should be thorough. As such, conduct interviews and make use of digital research and analysis tools to get the latest factual data.
Final Thoughts
Don’t waste your money and other resources marketing to people who don’t check all the boxes of an ideal customer. Define and identify your ideal target audience first and then maximize the possible leads and ROIs on your marketing campaigns.
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