At times, it can feel like reaching the intended eyes or ears is an uphill battle for businesses and marketers alike. A vast selection of brands, products, and anything and everything under the sun makes it hard for anyone to get noticed, let alone by the specific customer you had in mind.
However, reaching your target market does not have to be daunting. It can be as simple as knowing who your customer is and what they need. If you know the research and implementation process, how to reach your target market will be a no-brainer.
So, are you ready to reach your target market?
What is a Target Market?
A target market can be thought of as a consumer group sharing similar characteristics and needs.
However, this goes beyond simply knowing who or what the group is. The ability to identify and, most importantly, comprehend your target market gives you a leg up.
This understanding lets you tailor ads to resonate with the right audience, leading to increased brand awareness, customer engagement, and higher conversion rates.
Before identifying your market, or target audience, let’s break down the two.
Target Audience Vs. Target Market
Although target audience or target market are used interchangeably, they refer to distinct aspects of your marketing strategy.
The target audience represents the specific group of individuals who are intended to see your ad or promotional content. They are the people you want to attract and appeal to through your marketing messages. Understanding your target audience involves delving into their demographics, interests, preferences, and behaviors. For luxury brands, this might encompass individuals who appreciate exclusivity, quality, and a premium experience.
Now, a target market is a broader group that includes the primary consumers you want to reach and other potential customers who share similar traits and needs. In other words, a market encompasses the different audiences you’re targeting. Keeping with the luxury brand example, the target market might encompass the affluent segment of society, those who appreciate the finer things in life and have the resources to invest in premium offerings.
Types of Target Audiences
Demographics
Demographic segmentation involves categorizing the target audience based on age, gender, income, education, marital status, ethnicity, etc. This approach helps marketers create ads that pique with specific demographics. For example, a company selling toys might target parents with young children, where a retirement community would target those of elderly age.
Lifestyle & Interests
This type focuses on understanding the target’s lifestyle, interests, values, and personality traits. This approach delves into the motivations behind consumer behavior, allowing businesses to connect on a deeper emotional level. For instance, a fitness brand may target health-conscious folks who prioritize a healthy lifestyle instead of people at a certain age.
Location
Geographic segmentation divides the target audience based on location like country, region, city, neighborhoods, even zip codes. This approach works best for businesses with location-specific offerings (restaurants and such) or those looking to adapt content to regional preferences and cultural nuances.
Behaviors
Behavioral segmentation categorizes the audience based on their previous interactions and behaviors like purchase history, website browsing habits, social media engagement, and responses to marketing campaigns. By understanding the behavior of different segments, businesses can tailor personalized content to suit their specific needs and preferences.
Purchase Intent
Purchase intent categorizes the target audience based on their likelihood of readiness to purchase. It provides valuable insights into where potential customers stand in the buyer journey. High-intent customers, for example, are actively seeking information about a specific product, comparing options, and are close to making a decision. Moderate-intent customers, on the other hand, might have engaged with content, signed up for newsletters, or shown interest but have yet to make their minds up.
How to Identify a Target Market
- Start the process by examining the data of your existing customers. Analyze their demographics, buying behaviors, preferences, and any other relevant information. This data will provide valuable insights into who is already attracted to what you’re offering. Look for patterns and commonalities among them to identify potential segments. Such information serves as a valuable starting point for narrowing down your target market.
- Social media platforms hold a treasure trove of data on consumer behavior and preferences. Pay attention to the interests, influencers followed, and online behaviors of your potential customers. Social data can reveal emerging trends and provide a comprehensive view of your audience’s lifestyle and aspirations, aiding in the creation of tailored marketing campaigns.
- Conduct thorough research on other brands or rival businesses in your niche and examine their target market strategies. Identify gaps in the market or areas where your brand can offer a unique value proposition. By differentiating your brand and understanding what sets it apart, you can attract and retain a dedicated segment of the market.
- Clearly articulate the value your brand brings to its customers. Identify the unique selling points, the emotional benefits, and the enhancement your product or service provides. Crafting compelling messaging around the value of your offerings will attract the attention of your target market, creating an emotional connection that encourages loyalty and advocacy.
- With the data and insights gathered from the previous steps, it’s time to create detailed buyer personas. A buyer persona is a fictional representation of your ideal customer, encompassing their demographics, interests, motivations, and pain points. Tailor your marketing messages to resonate with each persona, highlighting the unique ways your brand fulfills their desires and aligns with their lifestyle.
4 Steps: Reaching Your Market
Once you have defined who you are trying to reach, the next step is to connect with these individuals. Be sure that you have taken the time to clearly define your target audience, as reaching them will depend on who they are, where they like to hang out, and how your product or service can help.
It’s a new world, and traditional marketing can’t stand alone. Cutting through the noise and engaging your target market can be difficult, but following these four tips for reaching the right audience will help you lock down the quality leads you want—and need.
Step 1. Develop Referral Programs & Partnerships
More than ever, networking is essential when growing your business. The internet is an immense place. It’s difficult to get found with a website or Facebook page alone. Good old-fashioned networking is needed to jumpstart sales.
Partner with a brand that complements your business. Whether it’s a referral system to produce qualified prospects and help your business grow or split the cost of marketing materials, you’ll be amazed by how many small businesses will be happy to connect with you.
Align with local events in your area, from seminars and conferences to festivals and trade show conventions. These are great opportunities to network and position your products and services in front of the right audience.
Some of the biggest companies today have utilized referral programs and partnerships. PayPal, for example, introduced a referral program in 2017 for online payment services like Bitcoin and Venmo. Also, Louis Vuitton and BMW established a co-branding campaign focused on Louis Vuitton’s signature luggage lines since both companies are in the business of travel and value luxury and high-quality craftsmanship.
A local example could be an interior design studio showcasing a local furniture brand. Both companies would then mutually refer to each other to build their network.
You can also utilize your network for innovative or cost-saving opportunities, such as co-branding an event. Sony, as a video game console manufacturer, has consistently partnered with game developers to hold national and international e-sports tournaments to showcase the best players and draw attention to both brands.
Step 2. Reach Out to Influencers
Another way to reach your target audience is by contacting influential bloggers, vloggers, and social media personalities. The best candidates should have large followings that include your target audience. This way, your products, and services get seen by the right people. Plus, influencers tend to be more affordable than traditional advertising methods.
The benefit of influencer marketing is the trust they have with their audience. If they unveil your product in front of viewers, they give an honest opinion about its packaging, features, and price. Consumers trust this honest feedback.
Take Lauren Bullen (@gypsea_lust), for example. Her Instagram feed is full of pictures of her in various destinations around the world, making her a strong influencer in the travel industry. Getting your brand in one of her pictures can be an easy way to get in front of her 2M+ followers.
Here at MediaMax Network, we offer influencer marketing capabilities. This includes all logistics for product distribution and recommended ideal influencers (micro and macro level) for your campaign.
Step 3. Hyper-Target (A More Advanced Way to Target Your Audience)
SMBs have targeted specific groups of people with their local marketing campaigns for years. Billboards have been placed in specific locations to reach a local audience, and print ads have been placed in magazines that cater to a specific community, lifestyle, or interest. In the current age of big data and technology, however, this only scratches the surface.
For example, life-event intelligence can reach your best audience based on self-reported lifestyle data. This includes being able to target newly engaged, newly pregnant, college-bound students/ parents of college-bound students, home purchases, retirement, etc. There are many possibilities to guarantee you can get a product in front of the right person at the right time and place.
Step 4. Implement Targeted Ads
With advanced targeting features for print and digital marketing, there is no reason to waste money advertising to a generic audience. Last year, we announced the launch of MAX IQ™, exact targeting with first-party data.
This takes advantage of targeting with our new data-driven approach that uses first-party data to reach a marketer’s exact audience, eliminating wasted impressions and delivering highly favorable results. This creates a new and improved method for implementing targeting ads with unrivaled precision.
We can select digital programs to leverage an exclusive combination of offline, e-postal, and mobile app data, including more than 9,000 apps and first-party data. Clients now have more critical audience insights, higher sales lift, and overall campaign ROI. Now, isn’t that a marketer’s dream?
Targeting and engaging your audience can be done in a few simple steps. Follow the steps above, your next customer is just around the corner!Want more strategic tips? Perhaps chat with a media specialist? Reach out now!