Imagine a deep-sea fisherman using gummy worms as bait, hoping to catch a shark off the end of a shallow dock. Or picture a famous musician utilizing her concert audience to try out some new material for a stand-up comedy routine. It goes without saying that neither of these strategies would be very successful. To catch a shark, the fisherman needs to be in the right spot with some good-sized bait. To pull off a spectacular concert, the musician should highlight better pull out her classic hits. Both these silly examples work to prove a point: not every strategy works effectively for all audiences.
This concept also carries over to the marketing world, where we spend our days figuring out the most attractive ways to package, advertise, and deliver our work to consumers. Poorly planned, wide-reaching, or carelessly targeted strategies might make you feel like a deep-sea fisherman loaded up with gummy worms. Thankfully, there are many ways to create more informed pay-per-click (PPC), email, and social media marketing strategies that speak directly—and effectively—to your target demographics.
Above All Else, Know Your Consumer Base
None of these tips will do your brand any good if you don’t intimately know your consumer base. Who are they? How old are they? And what, exactly, do they want?
Generational marketing and heat mapping are great ways to effectively isolate and analyze specific demographic needs. They can also allow you to reach your consumer base more effectively by helping you segment it into easily marketable groups. If you’re not quite sure where to start, we recommend working with an expert to ensure you’re getting the most out of your marketing.
Are You Reaching Your Target Market?
Take some time to examine your current marketing strategies and existing materials. Whether this means scrolling through some recent blog posts, re-examining current running ads, or checking engagement on active social media platforms, ask yourself and your team a few questions in order to identify possible issues with your current demographic targeting and the marketing and advertising strategies associated with it.
- Which target demographic brings in significant ROI for my brand?
- What specific demographic of consumers is this marketing content speaking to?
- Do I thoroughly understand the mindset, motivations, and marketing preferences of my intended target demographic?
- Could anything (wording, images, formatting, etc.) in this piece of content distract my target demographic from the message my brand is communicating?
- Am I communicating this message through the most effective digital medium for my target demographic?
- Do I often re-evaluate my marketing strategy according to feedback to ensure that I’m meeting the needs of my target demographic?
Practical Adjustments for Various Mediums
Once you gain an understanding of which aspects of your current demographic targeting or marketing strategy could benefit from a refresh, it’s time to start making adjustments to your digital mediums accordingly.
PPC
In a world in which consumers are constantly surrounded by marketing messages and invasive ads, they’ve wised up. If advertising for a specific offer or product is accompanied by complex jargon, sketchy reviews, or complex funnels, you’re bound to lose potential conversions along the way.
Now, we aren’t saying it’s time to abandon all PPC campaigns. Instead, consider supporting PPC campaigns with other effective strategies to maximize results. Among younger, tech-savvy consumer bases, queries on social media are becoming increasingly popular, even competing with those on search engines. Supplementing pay per click campaigns with subtle, effective social media advertising—like influencer mentions—is a great way to earn those clicks organically, leading to higher web traffic and, ideally, increased conversions.
Although 89 percent of Americans check their email up to five times a day, nearly 35 percent think marketing emails are sent far too often. But it’s not that consumers hate all marketing emails—they hate bad marketing emails. So don’t send them! Poorly planned email blasts are not as effective as they used to be, offering little to no context and low ROI. Instead of shooting out messages for the purpose of staying at the top of someone’s inbox, make sure every message sent is valuable to your consumers, respectful of their time, and worthy of their attention.
Intimately knowing your target demographic comes into play here, as you can target your message more effectively to segmented demographic groups. Consider splitting your email list up into smaller groups and creating email campaigns tailored to each one!
Social Media
With new platforms popping up every day and old ones falling by the wayside, executing a top-notch social media marketing is more crucial today than ever before. A strong social media calendar, complete with images, videos, blogs, engagement highlights, and more shareable content for multiple platforms, is a vital part of every solid marketing strategy. By knowing how, when, and where your target demographic thinks, acts, and shops, you can turn social media into a powerful tool in your marketing arsenal.