Taking Aim: How to Identify Your Target Audience

What's your mark?

Your business – and every business – has a singular driving goal: capturing more customers and, ultimately, owning your market. Today, owning your market doesn’t require you to spend more on marketing and promoting your business than your competitors. However, it does require you to have a more efficient marketing and promotion engine in place that yields maximum return for every dollar and every hour you invest. The process of building this engine doesn’t begin with tactics; rather, it begins with identifying your target. No business – yours included – can afford to market to everyone. Of course, it’s tempting to try to reach as broad an audience as possible in the hopes that no potential customer will slip through your fingers. However, in actuality, this approach will cost you much more money and deliver far less satisfactory results because you’ll have greatly diluted your chances of reaching those whose needs you truly serve. It’s important to understand that your target audience does not encompass anyone who might possibly ever buy your products or services. Rather, your target audience is comprised of those who are most likely to buy and, therefore, become the primary focus of your marketing efforts. Identifying the right niche provides the foundation for success in all aspects of marketing and promoting your business:

• It allows you to focus your efforts on those tactics and mediums that are most effective in reaching this particular group.
• It allows you to tailor your sales message to focus on the needs and concerns that are of greatest relevancy and urgency.
• Most importantly in today’s marketplace, it allows you to build a strong community around your brand comprised of people who love what you do and happily serve as your fans and evangelists.
• And in real dollars and cents, it’s the difference between sending thousands and hundreds of thousands of postcards to achieve the same end result.

Here are the steps you should take to ensure that you’re targeting the right audience:

Segment your customer base.

Who are your customers? Of course, there are many different ways to answer this question. Often it’s easiest to begin by examining your sales data and segmenting your customers into groups based on demographic factors, including age, gender, income level, education level, marital and family status, industry and geographic location. In working though this process, you’ll likely find that a particular group or groups emerge as those who buy from you most often. This simple step can also help you identify how best to market the same product or service to different groups. Some market segments may be better reached at trade shows while others can be reached at home with a direct mail campaign.

Dig deeper.

Breaking your customer base down into groups based on basic common characteristics like gender and income is only step one. To reach and engage with these groups effectively, you’ll need to develop a deeper understanding of both their lifestyle and their motivations. Start with one of your products or services and evaluate it through the eyes of the customers that exist within each group you’ve identified. Make a list that includes every possible reason this type of customer might want this particular product or service. Maybe they are trying to solve a problem, maybe they just want to feel good about themselves or to satisfy a basic need. Going through this process will help you drill down to the specific benefits and outcomes that should be the core focus of all your future communication with this group. Secondly, think about the routines of their day-to-day lives and how this communication will be best received. Do they frequently read the paper? Do they spend a lot of time in the car listening to the radio? When searching for news and entertainment, do they turn on the television or pick up their iPad? Are they likely to be active on social media platforms and, if so, which ones? This type of analysis is essential to ensuring that you choose the right vehicles and mediums to capture their attention.

Keep digging.

At this point, you’ve established a solid foundation of knowledge about your target audience. But if you dig a little deeper, you might uncover additional information that will allow you to sharpen your approach even more. Now that you’ve segmented your market and gained an understanding of what drives your customers, see if you can identify which group or groups offer the most marketing bang for your buck. For example, of all those who are most likely to buy your products or services, which groups represent the most profitable? In the B2B world, these are usually the clients with the greatest longevity or those who utilize services with the greatest profit margin. Also, who are the customers or clients that send you the most referrals? These are your very best customers because they do the work of selling for you, so make sure you are not only reaching your existing customers who fall into this category but also others like them because they represent a group whose needs you are particularly good at serving. Finally, it would be a mistake not to examine who your competitors are targeting. This is not so that you can just copy their strategy and run with it. To the contrary, what you’re really looking for is any gaps in the market that they might be overlooking so you can swoop in and grab these underserved segments.

Put your target to the test.

Now that you’ve identified your audience, it’s time for the rubber of your marketing plan to hit the road of execution, right? Not so fast. You need to put your construct of your target audience to the test to ensure that it’s one that can sustain and grow your business. This process is often called a SWOTT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunity, threats and trends) analysis. Ask yourself the following questions:

• Are there enough people within the audience you’ve identified to support your business?
• Can they afford your product?
• Will they see a legitimate need for it?
• Where do your prices fall in regard to their expectations? Too low? Too high?
• Are there opportunities to upsell other related products or services to this group?
• How much competition already exists in the marketplace for this group?
• Are there any trends you can identify of which you should be taking advantage?

While the process of identifying your target audience may seem complex, these steps hold the keys to competing effectively in today’s marketplace. When you clearly understand who buys from you and why, only then can you find the channels they frequent and become one with your tribe. And wouldn’t you rather own your target market than merely shoot arrows into the dark, hoping one will land?

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Vine 101: 10 Ways to Engage Your Customers in 6 Seconds or Less

Less than a year ago, three guys in New York City were working to build the next big thing in social media – a mobile video-sharing app called Vine. Their origin story echoes that of a thousand other start-ups we'll likely never hear about. But fortunately for the Vine guys, their little sprout got a big dose of Miracle-Gro when Twitter bought the start-up before it launched the app. Backed by the juggernaut of Twitter's resources, influence and platform, Vine reached the top spot in the free apps section of Apple’s App Store within just a few months of launch. Beyond this fast take-off and the Twitter fire-power that fueled it, it's also worth mentioning that Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey is believed to be the driving force behind the acquisition. Dorsey is also the co-founder of highly successful mobile payment service Square, so you might say he's kind of a big deal in the world of tech start-ups. So that’s the story of how in just a few short months this newcomer to the social media scene has taken root and made a name for itself as a viable contender among the more well-established platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.). Daunted by the idea of incorporating yet another social media site – with its own set of rules and idiosyncrasies – into your marketing program? Don’t be. Here’s a quick run-down of the basics and some inspirational ideas to help you get started using Vine to connect with your socially-savvy customers:

Getting to know Vine

Integration with Twitter

Even if you have no need or desire to support another social media tool, it's worth embracing Vine as an extension of Twitter. The two apps' tight integration makes Vine a convenient way to tweet video and audio. Vine’s short 6-second-or-less clips complement Twitter's 140-character microblogging format, so the name of the game is just the same: whatever you share, make it quick and compelling.

Simplicity

After using Vine for a few minutes, it will become evident that its development team focused on simplifying the experience of making and sharing videos. Creating a Vine requires little more than pressing the record button in the upper corner (conveniently labeled with a camera icon), touching the screen to start recording and releasing it to stop. Tap the checkmark to keep the video, add a caption and location if desired, then post to Vine, Twitter or Facebook. That's it. Concept, creation and publication in less than 30 seconds.

Big creativity in a small package

Doing more with less can actually push your creativity to yield impressive results. Without the complicated tools of traditional video production – with its expensive cameras, lighting and post-production – Vine both forces and frees users to focus on creativity, distilling ideas down to their purest form to tell a soundbite story.

Looping

Vine videos loop automatically. In fact, this feature is so central to the user experience that it's mentioned in the app store's very short description: "See and share beautiful looping videos." With their six-second time limit, Vine videos are often jumpy and hard to process on a first viewing. Looping enables viewers to catch missed details the second or third time around. But many Viners are also using this loop feature in creative ways, making videos in which repetition is central to the concept, like the 1990s cult-hit Groundhog Day.

Vine-spiration

Now that we’ve covered the basic how-tos, here are 10 ideas for using Vine in your marketing mix. One quick note: to pause any of the Vines below, just click on them.

1. Introduce yourself.

Share a behind the scenes look into your company culture, show off your super-talented staff or give a sneak peek into a special project. A simple wave from everyone will do, or like restaurant VIA, you can make it fun by making faces, or tap into an internet meme like planking as a team.

2. Make a stop-motion movie.

No matter how advanced video technology and special effects have become, stop-motion animation, with its often jittery feel, has captivated generations of children and adults alike. With its simple touch-based recording, Vine is built for stop-motion experimentation. Many of the most popular Vines use this technique, as seen in this gem from Twitter designer Ian Padgham (@origiful).

3. Build brand buzz.

Create a Vine tease to get followers excited about an upcoming event or product launch. Unlike commercials or marketing pieces with their long, resource-intensive production requirements, Vine is an easy way to promote in real-time. Late Night With Jimmy Fallon didn't need six seconds to tease a guest appearance by pop-star Justin Bieber – just a wig and a wink.

4. Introduce something new.

Maybe you can't afford a multi-million-dollar Super Bowl commercial to introduce a new product or service to the world, but hey, you've got Vine, right? Okay, okay. We know it's not the same thing, but even Pepsi, with its enormous marketing budget, turned to Vine to show off the new shape of its bottles. And their effort definitely did not cost millions to make.

5. Poll your peeps.

Want to take the pulse of your followers? Create a Vine that visualizes what you want to measure, and then ask for input in the comments. Comcast wanted to gauge the impact of promoting its SportsNet Twitter account during a hockey game. They owned the copyright for the broadcast, so they just published the clip on Vine. From the looks of things, they probably just recorded it right off the TV screen. Low tech, yes, but it works.

6. Create a moment of zen.

In the frenetic world of social media, a little tranquility is always welcome. Simply giving people a moment of calm among the chaos of the day can earn your brand some positive vibes by association.

7. Try some trivia to drive engagement.

People of all ages and backgrounds love trivia, and many can't resist a good riddle. Verizon mashed together game play, pop music and a feel-good holiday to give followers fun Valentine's Day-themed riddles.

8. Game on!

Like trivia, games are a great way to keep people engaged with your brand. We'll admit this one is a real challenge, but Vine user Brandin6 found a fun way to recreate a popular game from the 80s that gives new meaning to the term "video game."

9. Lure creative people to your team.

Want to find people for your organization that are social media savvy and creative? Vine is a great way to share your company culture in ways that will attract like-minded individuals that will keep that culture going strong. Better yet, hold a contest and have candidates submit Vines about why they want to work for you. It's a much more entertaining way to weed out applicants than giving resumes a ten-second look.

10. Celebrate the holidays (even the silly ones).

Even the most obscure holidays are good opportunities to produce entertaining content, like this geeky Pi Day celebration by our friends at VaynerMedia. The common theme underlying all of these ideas and examples is this: look for any excuse to make a Vine and then be as creative as possible. The Vine community rewards creativity. In fact, it's the driving force that fuels engagement with this new tool on the social media block...Hey, there's another idea: a New Kids on the Block parody. Vine win!

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