Aim for your target market!
Your marketing will fall flat if it is not reaching the correct person, so knowing your target audience is key to any marketing campaign.
A few questions to consider: What are the attributes of your best customers? What is the demographic like? Do they have any buying habits or patterns? Be sure to tailor your messaging to identify with this customer.
Data is often overlooked, but it is essential to an effective marketing strategy. Be sure that you are utilizing your current customer list properly. The list can be segmented to identify specific demographic characteristics such as location, gender, age range, income level, and purchase history.
You already know who they are and what, where, when, and how they buy so it is possible to customize your marketing to reach them specifically. A personalized marketing piece is much more effective than a generic one. Perhaps you would prefer to purchase a new prospect list. These are also useful and can be segmented accordingly so you can market to them specifically.
This segmented data is extremely useful for appealing to your target market. For example, consider a gym who might want to advertise its new babysitting service that will watch kids while their parents are working out. The gym’s target audience may be women from their mid twenties to mid thirties with children. A list can be acquired with their addresses but most importantly the creative can be customized to appeal to the consumer. A postcard with a buff body builder lifting weights might not be as appealing as an everyday mom next-door on a treadmill.
Identify you target market and utilize your data to customize your marketing.
Amanda Moore
Frustrated by your marketing?
I can’t generate new leads! My customers have left me for my competitor! They are not buying enough! I can’t seem to gain market share! They are not responding to my mailers! That postcard is too expensive! –My marketing isn’t working!
Everywhere I turn these days it seems that everyone is questioning their marketing. Although there is no sure fire formula that will bring success, there are ways to improve your marketing, enhance your response rates, and see a better return on your investment.
The next few blogs are intended to analyze your marketing efforts and will be presented in six short segments where we will discuss:
• Message and Copy
• Frequency and Timing
• Creative and Branding
• Call-to-Action and Incentive
• Target Audience and Data
• Response Mechanisms
Amanda Moore
Ask the right questions to uncover your marketing objectives...
Analyzing marketing performance is a key part of your marketing efforts. Tracking the responses to a campaign and analyzing its performance by utilizing valuable campaign data will drive better results.
How is the campaign performing? What is your return on investment? How much is your cost per lead? Is the campaign generating any new sales?
These questions can be overwhelming, but here are a few questions to ask yourself in order to diagnose the results of your current marketing efforts and identify areas that need improvement:
• What marketing initiatives have generated the most leads over the past few years?
• What is your conversion rate for leads to customers?
• What is the average length of a sales cycle? How are you trying to shorten this?
• Who is your target audience? Has this changed due to current economic conditions, pricing, or competition?
• How do you differ from your competitors? How do you communicate this to your customers?
• How do you grow the sales of your current customer base?
• How effective are your customer retention campaigns?
• What are the major forces driving change in your industry? How are you coping with this?
• What are the opportunities for growing your business in the future?
Asking yourself these simple questions will help you to uncover your business and marketing objectives. This exercise will allow you to figure out what is or isn’t working, what has worked in the past, and where you would like to be in the future. These questions will allow you to identify positive and negative trends in your marketing efforts, which is the key to successful marketing performance.
Keep in mind that not all feedback will be positive feedback, but it will be useful information in analyzing your marketing performance. For example, perhaps you launch a great new campaign with direct mail pieces and receive little or no response. First reaction might be to give up on direct mail because it will never work. After careful analysis you might come to realize that maybe the message or copy wasn’t conveying your company’s message. Or perhaps your mail list needs to be cleaned up or your offer didn’t resonate with the recipient.
Marketing campaigns are made up of multiple components that all need to come together in the right way in order to be effective. If you analyze and receive negative feedback…GREAT! At least it is feedback and it’s a step in the right direction to proactively managing your marketing campaigns to be as effective as they can be.
Amanda Moore
