Insights From Our Experts

Imagine a large theater audience. Imagine you’re looking out from the stage. There’s a sea of people, distinct and indistinct faces blurring together to create the singular “audience” that will listen to the next show or performance. 

Now, imagine a spotlight falling on a single row of seats. These faces are brighter, not washed out by the crowd. They’re a small audience within the larger audience, and depending on their position in the theater, they’ll have a unique experience of what happens on stage. 

Targeted marketing seeks to do something similar. By spotlighting the ideal audience within their broader audience, businesses can hone in on those customers’ unique experiences, needs, and expectations. Then they can develop messaging and campaigns that put their brand, product, or service in front of just the right person at just the right time. The results tend to be positive with increased ROI, higher customer engagement, climbing conversion rates, and better brand loyalty.  

So, are you reaching your ideal audience? We’ll teach you how to answer that very question and, if the answer is “no,” you can keep reading for ways to realign your approach to target marketing with tools like customer personas, B2B market research, and more. 

4 Signs You and Your Audience Aren’t Aligned 

First things first, a target audience is not exactly the same thing as a target market. A target audience is a specific, well-defined group of people within a broader market that a business actively targets with their marketing efforts. The better you know your target audience, the more your hard work will shine.  

In order to figure out if you’ve hit your target, you can assess the following: 

The “I Don’t Care” Attitude

What do your engagement metrics look like? Seeing consistently low click-through rates, open rates, likes, shares, and comments may suggest that the people you’re targeting don’t have anything to gain from your products and services. This could also be a case of your message, content, or value propositions not resonating, but it’s still worth examining your current target audience to be sure. 

Sorry Sales Numbers

You know those fun lunch hour parties marketing departments throw when sales are consistently going through? If you aren’t marketing to the right audience, these kinds of celebrations likely aren’t happening. (But don’t worry — they can soon be a thing of the near future). It can take time to get sales off the ground, but if sales just aren’t happening, you know you have a problem. 

Huge Effort, Minimal Results

You’re pouring your blood, sweat, and tears into every marketing campaign and every interaction with a potential customer. However, your efforts aren’t paying off and customers are slipping through your fingers. Sound familiar? This is a sign that you and your target audience members simply haven’t found each other yet. Take a moment to rethink the scope of services you’re able to extend to your customers and ask yourself where your relationships are going wrong. The right customers will be much easier to work with. 

Negative Reviews 

Every business wants to see praise and five-star ratings rolling in on Google Business Profile reviews or Trustpilot, but marketing isn’t all sunshine and rainbows. Negative reviews will pop up from time to time (after all, your brand isn’t for everyone). But if you’re seeing an overwhelming number of negative reviews—or negative reviews that seem unfair considering what your business is offering—it may indicate that you aren’t reaching the right people.  

Targeted Marketing Tune Up

So, you’ve scrolled this far. If you think that your marketing strategies and your target audience are at least a little out of alignment, here are four steps you can follow to course correct and make the most of your marketing efforts: 

Reassess Your Products and Services 

How would you define the key characteristics of the products and services you provide? Your “definition” could include the particular customer problems your products and services seek to solve, or any unique selling points that make your brand stand out in your market or industry. Some more food for thought: who, exactly, would benefit the most from using your product or service? The answer to that question may be pure targeted marketing gold. 

Conduct B2B Market Research 

We like to call this research, but it’s also just keeping a steady eye on what your competitors are doing (and whether or not they’re doing it successfully). The demographics they market to (as well as the market gaps they aren’t able to fill) can help shape your B2B content marketing strategy and introduce opportunities to seize target audience segments you hadn’t considered before. 

Develop a Customer Persona 

You’ve researched. You’ve gathered data. Now, put it to good use and create a customer persona. A persona is a fictional character that represents a specific sub-section of your customer base and provides detailed information about their goals, challenges, behaviors, and motivations. This will allow you to cater to your target audience when you design your marketing campaigns and even when you develop new products. 

Choose the Right Channels

Finally, it’s time to ask what consumer behavior looks like for your target audience. Are they flocking to Facebook, or are they more active on LinkedIn? Wherever your customers are engaging regularly and having meaningful interactions will give you a good idea of where your message should land and what that message should say. You can also tweak your B2B content marketing to match. 

Right Marketing Team, Right Time

If you’re struggling to get in touch with your ideal audience, Liger’s marketing experts can help you make the connection. Whether it’s identifying types of market segmentation or crafting a top-notch customer persona, our aim is to help your brand “Be Known” by knowing your audience, understanding their needs and pain points, and supporting your ability to craft marketing messages that really resonate. 

When you’re ready to take a walk on the customer side, we’ll be here. Contact us today to learn more about our data-driven customer research solutions.