Is targeted marketing the best strategy your business can introduce?
Marketing has changed very little since it first appeared during the industrial revolution.
As we spend our weeks in our office in Manchester, one of the main hubs of the industrial revolution. Things have changed little since the days of the industrial revolution in this bee-hive of a city, but nonetheless, our home city remains at the forefront of some of the most marketing-savvy sectors.
Marketing is an essential part of our day to day work at Create8. From the initial formulation of marketing strategy to the implementation of an innovative campaign.
In this blog, we will help you understand how targeted marketing campaigns can help your business generate sales and nurture relationships with a demographic that is likely to respond to your marketing.
Let’s get into the fun stuff.
What is targeted marketing?
We know how jargon-heavy the marketing sector can get, so honestly, there’s no need to be afraid of asking if you ever come across something you don’t understand. The beauty of working with a marketing agency is that we have done the homework so that you don’t have to!
Targeted marketing is when a business aims its marketing efforts at a specific demographic rather than keeping things open and generic. Businesses that use targeted marketing often focus their efforts on certain demographics, job types, lifestyles, or behaviour patterns. Using a targeted audience allows a company to place their marketing in front of people who are likely to be interested in the offering, potentially leading to increased sales, more interaction and brand awareness.
Do you need to know your target market?
If you’re a business in its infancy, you might not have enough data to support your initial theories of who your target market may be. Of course, you can keep it old school and mass-market, meaning targeting every man and his dog. However, this can be an expensive process in the modern era of digital marketing, and with time and funds at a premium, it certainly isn’t advised.
If you haven’t paid any thought to your potential target market, it would be beneficial if you do so, it will give your marketing agency or department something to go at and will help keep those vital costs down.
There are some simple questions you can ask yourself that will help you figure out an initial demographic. For example, are your products suitable for everyone? Who is likely to be the purchaser? With these questions, think about children’s products – whilst you want to attract the child, it will be the parents and other adults that buy your items for the children in their lives. How can you appeal to both at once?
Having a basic idea is the starting block; you may discover through old-fashioned surveys and customer interaction that you’ve missed a large section of potential consumers. This is one of the critical reasons for working out where you stand before diving into digital marketing.
Creating brand loyalty
Targeted marketing works hard for your business, and don’t forget it. Knowing your target market and providing them with the right marketing efforts will help you create a bond with them over weeks and months. The content you provide is aimed to resonate with the specific audience you choose to target and therefore nurtures the bond you have created as well as building brand awareness.
A competitive edge
Whilst firms worry about spending those hard-earned pounds on their marketing efforts; they often overlook the advantages it offers them. For example, when you establish your target market, you are able to manage their wants and needs for new and developed products. If one day your target market starts looking for a product that differs from your own, you can communicate with them to be able to create it for them or offer solutions to drive business back to you instead.
It’s important to note that targeted marketing will provide you with enough information to manage your relationship with your audience but it won’t stop other businesses from attempting to poach that audience and gain a competitive edge over you.
The deeper and more wholesome a relationship you form with your target audience, the more difficult it becomes for competitors to take your customers for themselves. If your product is equal to a competitor, they would choose the brand they know and love first. Don’t give them a reason to go elsewhere, and stay on their mind every now and then with targeted ads.
Finding growth potential
Targeted marketing can seem like a very structured process, and most of the time it is. However, it’s often overlooked how having a knowledge of your target market can also help your business find growth potential.
For example, after years of manufacturing beer, the idea came for alcohol-free beer. The knowledge gained by understanding the beer sector through targeted marketing would have helped ignite this idea into fruition. The sector understanding and research will have highlighted this niche audience – looking for the experience of drinking a beer without the alcohol content.
Digital Marketing at Create8
At Create8, we live and breathe marketing, the beauty of hiring an agency like us is that we are there for each step of your journey. We pride ourselves on creating thought-provoking, game-changing campaigns as our team of designers and marketers come together on each project that lands in our office. If you want to see some of our work or think it would benefit your business for us to work together, follow the link below.
How to build targeted marketing into your strategy!
It’s more accurate within the digital world than ever before that you won’t relate to anyone if you aim to talk to everyone. As you seek to break down one large segment of potential customers into smaller, more manageable ones, we need you to start thinking about how you will implement your targeted campaigns.
Finding your target market is the easy part; now, it’s time to start interacting with that market in a way they appreciate. Here are some of the best ways that you can integrate targeted marketing within your marketing strategy.
Paid ads – With paid advertisements, you can be incredibly specific with who you want to target and how you are going to reach out to them. Think about what platforms best suit your audience, and off you go.
Marketing communication – The way you speak to your audience is important when it comes to building those vital relationships. Think about the ways salespeople traditionally target consumers; you need to be as relatable as possible. Using dialect and jargon similar to your audience allows you to build an instant connection.
Content marketing – So, does your business put out a constant flow of content? Is most of it the same as the week before and the week before that? It’s time to put a change to that approach for content marketing, it’s essential that your offering aligns with the desires and wants of your target audience. Giving those who care most about your brand something that resonates with them allows your business to nurture the relationship.
SEO – If people are looking for someone like you, they will likely have popped a search into Google and found a company that meets their needs. This consumer behaviour is the reason why your website needs to be as optimised for search engines as possible. By using targeted marketing, you can find the essential keywords for your SEO. The words that your potential customers use when typing their online searches and the ones that will drive organic traffic to you.
At Create8, we work alongside each of our clients to provide digital marketing that connects the dots between brand, web and marketing. From the initial marketing strategy sessions to the implementation of your marketing campaign, we walk by your side so that we can continue to build something spectacular.
Targeted marketing campaigns are something we currently run for a number of clients, and we offer various packages so that there is something for everyone. Whether you are looking for content target marketing or paid social, we have a package that suits you and your business needs.
Check out some of our previous work and leave us a message. You can explain the project you are looking for there and then, or you can pop into our office to have a chat over a cup of tea to learn more about Create8 and what we can do for you.
We can’t wait to hear from you!
Take a look at some more of our blogs for helpful tips, tricks and advice:
