Targeted Audiences: The Key to Campaign Success

In the world of advertising, targeted audiences are critical to the success of a campaign.  Our first step is to define a targeted audience.

Simply, a targeted audience is a group of consumers who have a predisposition for an advertiser’s products or services.  The predisposition can take on many characteristics from demographic data to tastes and preferences.

The more targeted the audience, the better aligned the marketing message, the greater impact a marketing campaign will have.

Don’t forget, the bottom line of advertising and marketing is to increase sales. To learn more, click here

There are four main types of targeting:

1. Demographic
2. Psychographic
3. Geographic
4. Behavioral

Demographic

Demographic audiences focus on physical traits like age, gender, income, occupation, family status, etc.

An example would be a fashion line.  The targeted audience of the fashion line would be young females. The line would use marketing channels like Instagram and would create advertisements that appeal to young female markets.

Psychographic

Psychographic audiences target characteristics like values, desires, goals, interests, and lifestyle choices.  It requires the marketer to understand the consumers emotions and values to craft influential messaging.

An example of psychographic targeting would be an online poker website discovering a substantial proportion of its users also enjoy watching baseball.  This may lead to a “World Series of Poker” campaign that successfully ties the two together.

Geographic

Geographic targeting defines audiences by their physical location.

A good example of this is defined by seasonality.  A clothing line campaign will feature warm garments in areas where it’s cold.  Skiing products can be featured in places that have skiing, surfing lines are featured in places where you can surf.

If you do not geographically target correctly, it will lead to disastrous results.

Behavioral

Behavioral targeting uses prospect’s activities to define which advertisements or marketing messages will resonate with the audience.

Behavioral targeting is the most useful for ecommerce businesses.  It uses web user information to strengthen advertising campaigns and creates a full user profile.  Consumer behavior consists of such parameters as:

• Spending
• Browsing
• Content Type
• Time Spent on Site
• Shopping Cart Value

By cross indexing and recording user behaviors, a clear picture can emerge of what the audience wants, avoids, and purchases.

An example includes emails a prospect may receive depending on their interaction with a site, such as subscribed, added an item, etc.  First party data is the strongest and most coveted indicators for purchasing metrics and marketing development.

In Summary

A good place to start with targeting audiences is your friendly neighborhood geofencing guy.

Geofencing builds a very targeted audience.  Physically visiting a location is the strongest indicator of buying intent.

For more information, check out these videos on geofencing.