GROW YOUR BRAND BY RETHINKING YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE
Bank robber Willie Sutton was asked by the police why he robbed banks. His explanation is the the now legendary quote “Because that’s where the money is”. So what do you, an online marketer trying to grow your brand and bottom line, have in common with a mid century bank robber? Well, you have to find where your audience is.
Sutton’s quote inspired the “Sutton’s Law”, which is to look for the most obvious explanation first when diagnosing a problem. But in an online world that has so many social media networks and more than a billion people, the obvious solution often gets lost amidst the noise. To use another analogy, it’s easy to lose the forest within the trees.
FOCUS ON THE CORE BASICS OF YOUR BRAND
So let’s bring this back to a real world marketing situation involving your company, and a goal of increasing your sales. You created your social media campaign – you have engaging content, you set automated tweets for the next month, and you’re posting three times a day on Facebook. So that’s it? Now all you have to do is sit back and watch the sales roll in?
Well, not quite. You missed the other side of the equation with the customers. Say you own a company that sells athletic apparel. You have a specific customer base in mind – active, weekend warriors, with extra income. So does it make sense that kids in high school or retirees see your tweets? Wouldn’t that content be most effective if it were focused specifically towards your target audience?
We at Nao Media have experience with this idea of adjusting our target audience. When we first began, we focused heavily on sports and entertainment marketing. But this year, we narrowed our focus and services to content creation, web copywriting, and SEO training for clients who fit our core values.
NARROW DOWN YOUR AUDIENCE USING SOCIAL MEDIA TOOLS
Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ each have tools you can use to narrow down your target audience so your marketing campaigns not only reach the largest amount of people, but the most relevant people that would find the most value from your services.
Facebook’s Promoted Posts that appear on timelines allows you to narrow down your target audience through location, time, friends, and friend’s of friends. Google+ allows you to customize by age range. Twitter allows you to customize ads through group interests and followers.
ALWAYS BE FLEXIBLE WITH YOUR TARGETED AUDIENCE
Our remarketing approach requires two steps. The first step is creating your holistic online marketing campaign with content at the center. The second step, which most brands don’t focus enough on, is to get the most out of each platform through a target audience that would get the most out of your service or product. Pay special attention to these details and you will be rewarded with engaged customers.
