Target Marketing- Know Your Audience

With the rapid expansion of the digital landscape, the power has shifted more than ever into the hands of the audience. The ways in which people consume media has changed. It is crucial to the success of your company to identify not only who your audience is, but how you plan on connecting with them. This is where target marketing becomes essential to company success.

The bridge to your customers has gotten shorter

From small local businesses to large corporations, target marketing is the catalyst to success. It is no longer acceptable to take a shot in the dark. Customer identification is all about the process. Trial and error is the best means of success. Throw a line out to your audience, and see who bites. Find out what worked and then try again. This has proven to be one of the best ways of locating your ideal market. And because of the resources available on the web, the costs are minimal! This is called iteration. And the people who adopt this rationale, are the ones who are finding the most benefit.

However, not every channel of media is suitable for your purpose.  Target marketing is also about knowing which audiences are not suitable as well. Understanding which avenues to use will be vital to your success. Your audience may already be gathering together online. Social media sites such as Linkedin and Twitter have countless groups of potential clients that are categorised by their interests. It is up to you to tap into that world and find the best way to reach them. But it is something that must be very carefully managed. Facebook, for instance, has over 1 billion active users. Knowing who to connect with from the start will help you avoid potential pitfalls later on in the campaign. So strategise carefully!

If you can’t do it, find someone who can

Audience identification is not something that can be ignored any longer. Those large charts that separate audiences by gender, race and age are now collecting dust. These days the niche markets are proving to be the most rewarding. So, who in your organisation do you believe can handle these responsibilities? By taking these matters lightly, many companies will never reach the consumer heights that this digital age has to offer. Today, more and more businesses are now opting to make these practices a priority.

Target marketing is a dialogue

The traditional means of audience identification are quickly becoming a thing of the past. Market research has led companies to investigate their audiences through tools such as focus groups, polls and questionnaires. While these measures may have been beneficial in the past, they were always lacking one thing: Certainty. Market reality is proving to be one of the most formidable tools in our identification arsenal. Keyword tags, Social media and Analytics are allowing the audience to actually tell us what they want. Whether or not we actually listen is going to determine our success, or our downfall.