Targeting The Right Audience: Strategies for Market Segmentation.
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Introduction
Until you have known whom your target audience are, you cannot make headways in the market place. Amongst the billions of people in the world and the countless market audience that exist, not all of them can be your potential customers because human needs are insatiable and as such, it becomes uneasy to have everyone in the world as your target audience or potential customers.
It is possible to have the right and the big idea, but if you do not have the right set of people to patronize your business, you will fade out in now distant time. As blood is important to human life to be alive, so are the right audience important to any business. Whatever your idea is, whatever your vision is, whatever your market mission is, it is essential to have the right audience to compliment the gesture by your business.
If you must venture into any business, courtesy demands that that you conduct a feasibility study not only because of the market competitors, but to be able to identify the right customers who will in return yield profitable gains. Having a vast understanding of the target audiences is pivotal to the excellence of all promotional campaign because it draws the consumers attention and make them feel attached to your brand/ products. Audience targeting enables your promotional campaigns to reach the right consumers who will react to your marketing ads.
However, it is important to know that there is a glaring difference between the target audience and the target market in spite of their similarities. Both terms address a group of people who have interest in your brand/product. Target market deals with the wide range of people who are supposedly interested in your market offering, while the target audience is a portion of that wide range of the target market whom the promotional campaigns are intended for.
Meaning of Target Audience
Target audience is a targeted group of people bound by the same behavior, demography, age, gender, income or employment which a brand intends to reach with its promotional message for the purpose converting them to patronize their brand. The target audience can be reached through advertising, content creation and marketing campaigns. Target audience are the backbone of any business which prompt them to make strategic market decisions on which appeal to use to drive market sales, the area to spend money on market ads, and what would be the next line of action.
The Benefits of Market Segmentation
Marketing segmentation can be defined as a method of dividing prospective consumers into different segments according to their geography, psychography and demography behaviors in a bid to knowing them and serve them well according to their capabilities. Market segmentation is an amplification of market research that aims to discover the potential customers which helps to paints the products or services image attractive to the consumers. Market segmentation provides a lot of advantages for business organizations and business individuals which enables them to focus on the right audience for sales. The benefits of market segmentation therefore include;
The ability to produce more output with the same / less amount of input
It encourages Aggressive marketing
It enables the management of new product
Market segmentation helps to dominantly position product or service in the market
It allows for discovering new opportunities.
How To Strategically Segment Your Market.
Understanding your market is key to any successful business. It has to do with knowing the terrain you are operating on in order to make decisions that will positively affect your business to gain competitive advantage, to strengthen existing relationships with consumers, to design customer involvement, etc.
Understanding your market means to gather data and transform it to insights for brands/products in order to have a competitive edge ahead of others. It is important to know that the techniques used in understanding your market and your customers are targeting, positioning and segmentation. Targeting in the market place has to do with dividing the customers into different segments thereby crafting marketing logs that will get to the appropriate and intended audience. Positioning has to do with where you want your brand/ product to be in the phase of the market, it is about creating good impression about your brand or product in the sight of the market. While segmentation deals with the process of sectioning a wide range of consumer group into sub-groups of consumers according to shared demography.
Segmentation Bases
The features that marketers use to segment a wide range of consumer group into sub-groups or specific groups which enables them to focus their marketing promotional messages proficiently on the right audience is known as segmentation bases. These features are factors that assist marketers to segment their product or service audience towards the responsive target groups. Segmentation bases include the following:
Behavioral Segmentation: Behavioral segmentation has to do with the market division according to consumers feedbacks which may include product knowledge, attitudes towards the brand/product, benefits sought, usage rate, and loyalty status.
Geographic Segmentation: Geographic segmentation deals with market division according to the geographical location which include the country, the region, the state, the city, and the zip code.
Demographic Segmentation: Demographic segmentation deals with market division according to factual features which include the age group, type of gender, amount of income, level of education, type of occupation, the size of the family, and stage of life.
Psychographic Segmentation: Psychographic segmentation deals with market division according to psychological attributes which include personality traits, values system, believes, culture, and attitudes.
Business organizations can combine these bases to design focused markets. In comprehending the different bases, brands can come up with a more effective promotional campaigns that will synchronize with the main target audience.
Developing Customer Profiles
Customer profiles are imaginary representations of the ideal consumers according to real data which enables you to know and comprehend your target audience’s preferences, reactions, needs and wants, etc. that allows you to tailor your advertising messages, products and services to productively integrate.
The process of developing customer profiles involves the following:
Collect customer internal data (i.e. purchase history, customer service interaction, website reactions, demographics obtained, etc.) and external data (i.e. surveys, social media feedbacks.)
Evaluate customer data by identifying similarities in the market segmentation bases.
Categorize Customer Segments in order to be familiar with your customers sub-groups Group customers with similar characteristics and behaviors into distinct segments.
Give each segment a name or descriptor to make them relatable.
- Build Buyer Personas:
Flesh out each customer segment with details beyond demographics.
Include things like:
Goals and motivations: What are they trying to achieve?
Challenges and pain points: What problems do they face?
Media consumption habits: Where do they get information?
Values and interests: What matters to them in their lives?
Here are some additional tips for developing customer profiles:
Use customer profiling templates: These can help you structure your profiles and ensure you capture all the important information.
Focus on the problem you solve: Understand how your product or service addresses your customer’s pain points.
Consider contextual details: Think about the situations where your customers might use your product.
Avoid stereotypes: Base your profiles on data, not assumptions.
Continuously refine your profiles: As you gather more data, update your profiles to reflect changes in your customer base.
By following these steps and keeping these tips in mind, you can develop detailed customer profiles that will help you create targeted marketing campaigns and improve your overall customer experience.
Who is Your Ideal Customer?
Creating Profiles for Each Segment
Targeting Your Audience
Selecting Target Segments
Positioning Your Product/Service for Each Segment
Crafting Your Marketing Message
Speaking to the Needs of Each Segment
Tailoring Your Message for Different Channels
Measuring Success
Tracking the Performance of Your Campaigns
Refining Your Segmentation Strategy
Conclusion
Whatever your idea is, whatever your vision is, whatever your market mission is, it is essential to have the right audience to compliment the gesture by your business.
Call-for-action
Tel: (+234) 802 320 0801, (+234) 807 576 5799
Email: info@Stonehillresearch.com
Office Address: 5, Ishola Bello Close, Iyalla Off Street, Alausa, Ikeja, Lagos, Nigeria
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