No matter how well put together your marketing strategy is, you’re not likely to see the best results unless you truly know who you’re pitching to and what they want to consume.
Understanding your audience should be the very first item on your agenda, and with multitudes of tools to analyse data as well as social metrics, there’s no excuse not to get stuck in to creating profiles for who you want to sell to.
Data Mining as a Foundation
The first question you will ask covers the very basics of the audience. Identifying gender, age and location will form the framework of your strategy and give you a starting point for audience and competitor research. Google Analytics is a fantastic place to drill down into the data you already have, with the information you need right there.
Don’t just skim-read either – look at trends in engagement. Is there a specific demographic that drives a bounce rate up for a certain page? Is there one local area that is pulling up your conversion rates? If the figures seem somewhat confusing, here is where you’d liaise with your digital marketing agency to make sense of the figures and begin working on audience profiles.
Ask the Right Questions
Put yourself in the shoes of your target audience. By understanding which questions they are asking, you can begin to put together a marketing strategy that offers up an answer.
Here’s where good content comes in, so be sure to consider raising this with your digital marketing agency if you want to implement a content marketing strategy as part of your overarching plan.
Understanding Their Process
So you know now that one gender tends to drive conversions more than another, and there is a definite trend in age groups. Now what? Ask your digital agency to guide you through the funnel process so you can better understand how long each stage takes before conversion occurs (whether this is making a sale or signing up to an email list).
If a lot of people are leaving at the checkout process, then it’s definitely time to review user experience at this stage of the funnel. By doing this type of exercise regularly, you can stay on top of changes in user behaviour. This allows you to continually compete effectively for their attention.
Maintenance Is Important
Ensuring you maintain strong relationships with your customers will lead to ongoing success in any marketing strategy you use, as you then have the additional power of word-of-mouth. Keeping in touch with customers via email is a good way to let them know you’re still invested in meeting their needs, and offering the odd incentive is a powerful way to breed loyalty.
If you have social channels, make sure you answer queries in a timely fashion or have a crystal-clear policy that lets your audience know when they can contact you. By truly knowing your audience and continually supporting them, you’re more likely to see that all-important ROI from your strategies.
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For expert guidance in helping you understand your target audience – leave us a message on our contact page and we’ll arrange an initial discussion