Know Who You Are Trying To Reach

whoThere’s an old saying that 50% of advertising works but no one knows which 50%. The proliferation of social media, analytics, and other tools, hasn’t changed this. What we do is that for any marketing to be successful, you have to know who you are trying to reach.

Media is fragmented.  The days of putting an ad on local or national television and reaching everyone is gone. Different people use media differently. If you don’t know who you are trying to reach, you won’t know where to put your message or what they will respond to. For example if you are advertising eldercare, you wouldn’t want to advertise on Cartoon Network. You may want to advertise on Facebook since seniors are the fastest growing demographic on the service. Here are three things to do before you kick off your marketing campaign:

  • Define your market. Who is your customer? Define the demographics and psychographics of the person you are trying to reach. Try envisioning your customer as a person and describe in as much detail as possible everything about that person. Remember, if you have multiple products they may each have their own ideal customer.
  • Research where your customers are. Do your customers spend time on social media? What service do they use? Are they still using the phone book? Go online and research the trends that your customers are following.
  • Learn your customers interests. Once you know who and where they are, you need to know how to engage them. What are they interested in? What can you do to make their lives easier and better?

If you know these things, your marketing will be more effective.