The Ultimate Guide to Target Audiences Introduction Welcome to Latana’s Ultimate Guide to Target Audiences! Is your marketing resonating with your audience – or falling on deaf ears? Whether you run marketing for enterprise software, fast-food, or luxury fashion, appealing to the right people is the cornerstone of effective marketing. Maybe you have already tried casting a wide net and realized marketing to everybody is expensive and doesn’t work? This guide aims to equip you with the knowledge and tools you need to attract and engage customers who are loyal to your brand. At Latana, we help businesses every day to build a stronger brand by defining and tracking relevant consumer groups, known as niche audiences. We’ve seen first-hand that getting your brand in front of the right people can make or break your marketing. That’s why we decided to share our insights and expertise in this guide. Enjoy! Table of Contents What is a Target Audience? What are the Benefits of Having a Target Audience? How Can You Find Your Target Audience? Tools to Help Define Your Target Audience How Your Target Audience Can Improve Your Brand Awareness: Featuring Case Studies from the UK Travel Industry The Audiences Sustainable Brands Should Be Targeting C h a p t e r 1 C h a p t e r 2 C h a p t e r 3 C h a p t e r 4 C h a p t e r 5 b o n u s c h a p t e r What is a Target Audience? C h a p t e r 1 What is a Target Audience? C h a p t e r 1 A target audience is a specific group of people who is likely to be interested in your product or service and has the means to purchase it. Let’s take a look at some real-life examples of how successful brands focus on appealing to target audiences to build brand awareness and loyalty. Zipcar Zipcar is a company that deals in car hire. Users sign up online and then can book a car by the hour or day. Cars are parked around major cities, so there’s no need to visit a Zipcar office for the keys; users simply unlock their chosen car through the app. Once they’re finished with it, they just park it where they picked it up. The main user of Zipcar is the urban-based millennial. Those who maybe can’t afford a car full-time and don’t need to use one on a regular basis. As millennials are mainly found on social media, Zipcar has focused a lot of its branding efforts on Facebook and Twitter. From witty posts that engage and a responsive social media team across the two platforms, they’ve really nailed their engagement with millennial social media users. c a s e s t u d y Examples of Zipcar’s Facebook and Twitter posts Chipotle Another brand that does millennial marketing extremely well is Chipotle. Known for its use of fresh and sustainable ingredients in its Mexican food, Chipotle created a fictional web series called “Farmed and Dangerous.” Featuring a millennial farmer, Chip, who battles a corrupt food production company, the web series was more of an experience as the brand also created a dedicated website featuring trivia and behind-the-scenes clips. The brand didn’t stop there. They even released an iPhone game that further helped pull millennials into this unique branding experience. c a s e s t u d y From Chipolte’s iphone game From “Farmed and Dangerious” web series Quaker Oats Now let’s take a look at a brand that has proven to be effective at targeting the older generation. Quaker Oats gets an 86% approval rating from baby boomers, which is a whole 10% more than from millennials. So, why do these porridge oats get so much love from older folk? One of their secrets could be their branded events, such as the AARP Life@50+ event in Washington DC. Visitors could take dance lessons or enjoy free samples from Quakers, all in the name of promoting healthy living. There was also the chance to win a $50,000 grand prize which visitors could enter by submitting videos of their dance moves. All those people who attended the event would have gone away associating Quaker products as being healthy choices in the grocery store. c a s e s t u d y 86% of baby boomers consider using Quarker Qats What are the Benefits of Having a Target Audience? C h a p t e r 2 What are the Benefits of Having a Target Audience? There are many reasons why focusing on target audiences will help you improve the effectiveness of your marketing. It’s not always about how you’re marketing, it’s who you’re marketing to. You could have the best campaign concept in the world and it would still be a flop if you didn’t get it in front of the right people. Let’s take a closer look at all the ways focusing on target audiences will take your marketing to the next level. C h a p t e r 2 Save your money Marketing to the wrong people isn’t just ineffective, it’s also expensive. Let’s say you’re running a social media campaign to promote your new product. Without knowing who to target, you are likely to spend a lot of money reaching a wide group of people, without generating many conversions. It’s much more efficient to invest your budget on ads targeted to a specific group of people who are likely to be interested in what you are offering. Build loyalty The right customers will often mean repeat business. After all, focusing on a few specific industries or demographic segments makes it easier to understand their needs, keep up with product innovation, and offer excellent customer service. This is likely to result in loyal customers who stick around and even recommend your brand to others. Stand out from the competition Niching down makes it easier for you to position your business as an authority or expert in a particular field. Furthermore, you will likely face less competition, as the more specific your product or service is, the fewer companies there will be competing for your customers. In other words, it’s better to be a big fish in a small pond, than a small fish in a big pond. Earn a higher profit Your pricing strategy is a delicate matter. The temptation to price high can backfire, but generally speaking, customers are more inclined to pay more for a product or service that fully meets their needs – especially if they feel there is no viable alternative. Be sure to research your target audience demographic and conduct a competitor analysis to understand customer needs and how your product compares to other solutions on the market. Drive your content marketing Investing in content marketing as part of your marketing strategy is one of the best things a business can do to get inbound marketing leads and resulting sales. With so much content available online, it’s easy for content to get lost in a sea of digital noise. The solution? Invest in content that inspires, educates, and provides value to a specific audience. Consumers want content that is highly relevant to them and answers their burning questions. Consumers will feel more engaged with your brand and see you as a trusted authority in your industry – which means you will be top of mind when they are ready to make a purchase. A bonus for marketers is that Google loves organic content, and will rank your pages higher. How Can You Find Your Target Audience? C h a p t e r 3 How Can You Find Your Target Audience? Now we’ve cleared up what a target audience is and why you should be marketing to them, let’s dive into how you can go about defining the right audiences for your brand to focus on. Analyze your product Take a step back and look at your product with fresh eyes. Who is it for and why is it for them? It’s important you take the time to answer these two questions correctly, or else you might run into difficulties later on. Ultimately, the answers to these questions should also explain why your target audience should buy from you. For instance, if your brand offers services within the financial industry, you need to consider who those services are going to benefit the most. Companies or individuals? If the former, B2B or B2C? You might even want to dig a little deeper to see the demographics of individuals who may be attracted to your services, such as age and gender. Combing through your services very finely will allow you to establish and analyze your exact target audience. C h a p t e r 3 Conduct a thorough customer analysis Your best customers are likely to have a bunch of traits in common – whether in terms of demographics, such as age, gender, and location, or hobbies, interests, and values. The best place to start is probably your CRM or customer database. Pay attention to who buys from you, how often, and the average order size. How old are they, on average? Where do they live? How are they purchasing your product? What professions do they work in? What are their hobbies or interests? Are they single or partnered? Do they have children? Who do they live with? What is their income? All of these questions will help you identify the people benefiting most from your product or service and you as a brand manager, can align your strategy accordingly. Check your social media Examine your online presence and social media following. Who is a fan of your company page and regularly engages with your content? They must like you! Identifying your high-value, loyal customers makes it easier to set priorities in your targeting strategy. Then, look at what kinds of content they engage with. The insights you’ll find on your Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram accounts are a useful indication of which topics and formats resonate with your audience. Collect customer feedback Does your product or service meet consumer needs? What kind of advertising will pique their interest? What features and benefits do they want from your products or services? Of course, you’ll need to speak to your audience directly to get any usable data to answer these questions. Carrying out customer surveys is one way to go about collecting this data. You’ll be able to put your burning questions directly to those who already use your brand. As well as this, you can also carry out research on social media. It’s also worth using Facebook and Twitter polls to see exactly what your followers think. These are completely anonymous so your customers shouldn’t be too cautious about holding anything from you! Do due diligence on the competition It always makes sense to see what the competition is up to. Maybe their target audience isn’t exactly the same as yours, but perhaps there is a crossover? In what ways are they engaging them that may also work for your strategy? Which channels are they present on and what kind of content are they creating? Maybe they are doing something completely wrong and will save you the trouble of making the same mistake? Learn how they are engaging their target audience and analyze the ways they are targeting them, then, do it better! Embrace change Your target audience may change over time and that’s okay! Whether a new product or service has gone to market, or your target audience has eyes for another brand, it happens. By using brand tracking software to monitor your brand awareness, you can start to understand this change and seek out to explore this new audience who’ve entered the market. Give yourself full permission to adjust your strategy accordingly and focus your attention on attracting and nurturing this new audience Evaluate your decision So, you’ve made a decision on who makes up your target audience. But is it the right one? It’s important that you evaluate the outcome t o make sure it’s correct. Sometimes evaluating your own decisions isn’t that easy, so it might be worth talking to colleagues in the marketing team and across the company (such as sales and customer service) to hear their perspective. The first thing to consider is whether there are actually enough people who fit the criteria of your target audience. Marketing to target audiences brings lots of benefits but if the niche is too small, then you might not have enough people to target. And that means growing sales and revenues could prove to be very tricky indeed. Are you sure that your target audience will benefit from your product or service? Just appealing to your target isn’t enough—there needs to be a tangible benefit, or else your customers will quickly lose interest. These benefits need to be more than just the features of the product or service. One example is that a new cell phone might be advertised as having a fast Internet connection. That sounds like a benefit, but it’s actually only a feature. However, this does mean that users will experience faster load times for websites and apps, which is a big benefit. It’s this benefit—the consequence of the product feature—that needs to appeal to your target audience. Otherwise, they might not find a good enough reason to purchase from your brand. Tools to Help Define Your Niche Audience C h a p t e r 4 Tools to Help Define Your Niche Audience Digital tools can help you identify your most loyal and valuable customers, so you can decide which target audiences you should focus on. C h a p t e r 4 Google Analytics You’ve probably already paired your website with Google Analytics. There’s a wealth of information you’ll be able to glean from all this data, including the demographics and interests of your website visitors, the pages that they spend time on, and the search engine, social media platform, or another website that sent them to your site. Social Listening Social listening is a fancy name for snooping on social media. All it involves is you taking to the likes of Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to see what people are saying about your brand. This is a great method of analyzing your niche audience’s perception of your brand. Sure, you could spend your time scrolling through Twitter and Facebook for every mention of your brand, but it would be much The software monitors online conversations and will be able to provide you with an analysis of what’s been said after a specific period of time. Knowing what your niche audience is saying about you will help you understand them a bit more.