The Key Role of Audience Targeting
The first major element of our Basic Marketing Formula considers audience targeting. In other words, first answer the question, “Who do you want to talk to?”
Consider your best prospects for growing your business. Who are they? What are some of their defining characteristics?
Methods of Targeting
We often consider audience targeting from two distinct perspectives.
First, who are today’s best customers? By that we mean to ask, who are the customers like whom you’d love to have a lot more?
The most common way we determine a profile of your existing, best customers is a concept called creating look-a-like audiences. Essentially, this is using your existing customers to define a universe of similar people who are most likely to also become customers in the future.
Second, who are the best customers you’re not getting? Asked another way, if your existing customers aren’t the only ideal customers, who is?
Defining Your Audience Target(s)
As we hone in on your target audience(s), here is a list of common characteristics:
- Geography
- Age
- Gender
- Marital Status
- Own/Rent
- Home Value
- Children of Certain Ages
- Vehicles Owned
- Past Purchasing Behavior
- Past Locations Visited
- Search History
- Hobbies
- Job/Industry
This list is by no means exhaustive, and if you’re a B2B seller (Business-To-Business) versus B2C (Business-To-Consumer), your list of characteristics might look more like this:
- Geography
- Company Size
- Industry (SIC Codes)
- Role in the Business
- Job Title
- Annual Revenue
- Number of Employees
Again, this is not intended to be an exhaustive list. But you get the idea.
How Targeting Fits Into the Overall Marketing Formula
As you consider targeting, realize it’s only 1 element in our basic marketing formula:
TARGETING + MESSAGING + REACH = RESULTS
Once you know who you want to talk to, the next step in the process is to determine what you want to say to them. We explore that further in this related post.
Here is a quick reference to all the posts in this Marketing Formula 101 series:
TARGETING (This Post)
MESSAGING (The Next Post in This Series)
We Invest In You Before You Invest In Us
If you’d like to talk more about our Basic Marketing Formula, we’re always happy to schedule a free initial marketing consultation. Or connect with us in whatever way works best for you.
