Knowing Your Audience: The Art of Targeted Marketing
Whether it be in a casual setting, in a formal setting, in life or in business, it’s important that an individual knows their audience.
This is especially true in the marketing world where you may very well be trying to convince someone to put their faith in you and make a purchase.
The idea of knowing your audience in marketing, though, has been taken to a whole new level with the help of, not only researching your customers, but designing your product FOR your customers by using a methodology known as targeted marketing.
What is Targeted Marketing?
The term targeted marketing refers to a group of people that have been identified as the most likely potential customers for a product because of their shared characteristics such as age, income, and/or lifestyle.
The four different types of target markets include:
- Demographic – The main characteristics that define your market (age, income, gender, education)
- Geographic – Your audience’s global location.
- Psychographic – The consideration of lifestyle, attitudes, interests, and values.
- Behavioral – A research-based look into the proven appeal of past products.
All this becomes extremely valuable information during the decision-making process when a company is working on designs, packages, and advertising for its upcoming campaign launch.
This type of marketing is almost universally accepted as a great way for companies to significantly boost their revenue, allowing their product to answer a specific question for their customer base rather than try to grab the ENTIRE customer pool.
Seeing that this marketing tactic is so popular, it doesn’t take long for you to see it in action in real world situations.
Take, for example, the grocery store.
Decisions, Decisions
The grocery is a place where you have countless products lining shelf after shelf.
Often, the choices are endless and the brands competing against each other are side by side.
So how can someone selling a can of corn make sure that the customer chooses their can instead of the one sitting next to it?
Price? Yes, that is definitely a factor. The product selling for the lowest price does have a significant advantage over the alternative.
What about packaging? Definitely! Packaging – including can color, font used, images chosen, etc. will all play a role in helping the customer make their ultimate purchasing decision.
But there may not be a huge differing demographic for people buying a can of corn, so let’s move on to something a little bit more exciting…
Let’s go down the cereal aisle!
Cleanup on Aisle 13!
Cereal is a type of product that must work to target anybody and everybody in the grocery store.
Children eat cereal, adults eat cereal. The young eat cereal, the elderly eat cereal.
This is exactly the type of WIDE market space where a product needs to clearly define itself in the aisle to their specific demographic of customer.
But how?
This is where targeted marketing will really shine.
The most obvious case to make would be the children’s cereal vs the adults cereal.
On a box of cereal targeting children, you’re more likely to see bright colors, cartoon mascots, toy promos, and, in the ingredients, sugar. LOTS OF SUGAR!
Any and all of these things will help entice your young customer base to kick and scream in the aisle so they can get YOUR box of cereal over the less flashy competition.
On the opposite end of that spectrum, you have cereals that cater to adults.
It’s here where you are more likely to see healthier options with cost-cutting alternatives and perhaps even celebrity endorsements. (And don’t forget fiber. LOTS OF FIBER!)
As you can see, there are many differences between products depending solely on what they believe their market audience will be.
As for similarities… in each successful case, a marketing team has taken into consideration who they believe their ideal target market will be and tweaked the name, packaging, logo, advertising campaign, etc. to better appeal to that specific market… A time-consuming task, but one that more than pays for itself in the end.
The Wrap Up
Folks, it’s almost impossible to please everybody.
No matter what line of business you’re in, you’re going to have your fans, and you’re going to have your critics.
So, instead of trying to please everyone, just work to please the people that matter the most.
In the case of a product, those people will naturally be potential customers.
Identifying your target market is an essential part of the process of creating and refining a new product.
With a better understanding of your customers, you will be better prepared to meet their specific needs.
As a marketer, if you can get a strong hold on one demographic, there may be the possibility of more following during future product development, but that shouldn’t be your initial goal. Don’t be greedy. Take your piece of the pie and be grateful. Focus on your audience and trust that more will follow.
… And, when your customer base starts to grow, so too will your profit margin.
P.S. We here at Rain Digital know the importance of a good marketing campaign.
After all, marketing is our business!
Our team works closely with our list of customers to have a complete understanding of not just our customers, but theirs as well.
By understanding who you are selling to, we can work to produce a product that will meet your needs and the needs of YOUR target audience.
If you’re interested in learning more about how Rain Digital can help you better reach your customer base, then don’t hesitate to give us a call.
Our combined years of experience are just what you and your business need to make 2023 a year to remember!
