Reaching Your Specific Audience is Key to Your Marketing Plan

Every product has a different audience, you must reach that audience in order to be successful. Everything that you do needs to be geared towards your audience, or you will be wasting your time. 

However, it is not always easy to find and impact your target audience. Here are 6 tips and tricks to help you focus your marketing for your specific audience.

Discover Your Audience

The first thing you have to do is determine your audience. Every audience has different habits, preferences, communication styles, etc. And you have to market specifically for your audience. 

As suggested here, sit down and create a stereotype for your audience. Write down everything that you know about them: their gender, age, where they work, what they do for fun, their shopping habits, what type of job they have, where they live, etc. While not every one of your customers will fit into your perfect stereotype, they will have many things in common. 

Focus your marketing towards the stereotype you have created. Remember that if you try to speak to everyone, you’ll just end up speaking to no one.

Appeal to Your Audience

Once you have determined your audience, you can speak right to them. Let them know why they need you. What types of advertisements will they connect to? What is it about your product that will change their life? 

Remember to make your marketing about your customer, and not about you. Create content that will set up a conversation with your audience, not a lecture. Be genuinely interested in your consumer, and they will respond. Use the three rhetorical appeals (ethos, logos, and pathos) to reach out to your consumer. 

Essentially, inform your audience that you know what you are talking about, appeal to their ability to reason, and give them something that will touch their heart. (This persuasion method was created nearly 2,000 years ago by Aristotle, and has been proven effective over the test of time.

Be Seen by Your Audience

After you have determined who your audience is and how to appeal to them, you have find ways to get seen by them. Figure out what type of media your audience is consuming, and get on it. If you have an audience in a specific location, consider putting up a billboard for them to see every day. 

Find out what magazines and coupon books go out in that area, and get an ad in the mailer as soon as possible. If you are trying to connect to businesses, go to relevant trade shows, send letters or emails to businesses, and consider visiting them in person. Don’t forget to reach them online too (see below). 

Remember to keep your marketing specific and focused. If you get contacted by a magazine that your audience doesn’t read, don’t waste your time and money creating an ad for that company. Decide what will work for you and your audience, and do it.

Decide What Sets You Apart

You and your competitors are trying to reach the same people at the same time to sell essentially the same products. Determine what it is that makes you different and advertise that. Be careful not to over-compare yourself to your competitors, as it is tacky and a huge turn-off for customers. 

Instead, focus on you and your business. What do you do that is unique to other companies? Do you offer free samples? Have an amazing return policy? Do you have a secret recipe? Do you offer a service that no one else does? 

Is your treatment plan different than other companies? Do you offer a famous favorite at your restaurant? Let your customers know why you are unique. Make sure that it is right on your website, and something that you advertise frequently.

Reach Them Online

Communication is no longer as it was. Before, you would reach customers by mail, phone calls, radio ads, billboards, or in person visits. Now we have the internet that not only speeds up communication, but makes advertising incredibly easy. Take, for example, Facebook ads. 

For as little as $5 a day, you can reach out to your specific audience and get your brand seen. Facebook allows you to narrow your target audience based on age, location, things they like, and more. Unfortunately, you do have to reach your audience online, as it how the world connects. 

Make sure that your website is up to date and you keep up on your blog. Get your brand on social media (especially on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram), and be active on your social media pages.

Give Back

The best way to get noticed is to give back to the community. It is positive PR that gives people a good feeling about your business. While you should not give back solely for the PR, it does help your business. 

Charitable donations are also tax deductible, make you look good to customers, give you free advertising, and makes your community a better place to live in. Find a charity that works well with your business, or create your own. 

For example, if you are a cruelty-free skin care company, partner with a company that tries to make life better for animals around the country (like this company); if you are a furniture and appliance store, team up with a non-profit that rebuilds homes for low-income homeowners; and if you are a children’s toy and entertainment company, consider donating to a children’s hospital.

4 Savvy Ways to Get Customers to Buy Your Marketing Materials

Free publicity is often the best publicity – but what about publicity the customer pays to spread around for you? Many businesses have had their logo printed on “swag,” items such as pens, tote bags, T-shirts and mugs, and give them away to customers (and potential customers) at trade fairs and festivals. Free swag is a great way to remind potential clients of your business every time they use the items. However, savvy businesses can get customers to actually buy swag and use it. Start with these four simple tips and your marketing material could be as sought-after as the products and services you sell.

Target the Audience

Before you begin, consider your target audience – which should be the same as the target audience of your products or services. Focus on how to make your brand appealing to your target audience and how to best get the word out about the products you intend to offer. Social media will prove an excellent way to make your marketing campaign more interactive. The more you ask your customers to participate in the campaign, the more likely they are to pay attention when you sell swag.

Use social media not only to spread the word about your swag, but in the swag design itself. For example, come up with a hashtag related to your brand, products or services. If the hashtag takes off in popularity, incorporate it into your design. When someone new sees the hashtag on a customer’s swag, she’ll be inspired to discover the buzz behind the word or phrase.

Design Something Marketable

Once you know who you’re targeting and how you’re going to get their attention, focus on your design. You probably already have a business logo; if you can’t or don’t want to change that, that’s fine. If you are open to a redesign, getting ready to sell swag might be the ideal excuse.

In addition to your logo, come up with a fun, cute or attractive addition to your logo that appears on your swag and the marketing material for your swag. This should be something your customers will want to wear or show off for aesthetic reasons in addition to a love of your brand. For example, if your target audience is elementary school kids and their parents, a cute mascot animal could prove popular on T-shirts, pencils and notebooks.

Support a Charity

Donate a portion of the swag proceeds to a charity related to your industry or the community. For example, if you’re primarily a local business selling products for seniors, offer to support local senior centers and programs such as Meals on Wheels. If your business is aimed primarily at women, choose causes especially important to women, such as breast cancer research and support for abused women and children. Your customers and supporters of the charitable cause will spread the word about the promotion, which will lead to more sales. 

Start Small

Don’t look at the swag sales as a huge untapped revenue stream. Inc. 5000 cautions against thinking of marketing material as a substantial part of your profits, but stresses that real profit can be made with careful planning. Start with small vendors and see how sales of the items go before broadening sales.

Sell the swag exclusively out of your storefront or online store, or partner with a local store related to your industry to sell the goods. Focus entirely on the local market. If sales prove successful, branch out to more national avenues and broaden your online marketing strategy to include other regions. If you find you’ve ordered too much swag and it’s not selling, dial back on the campaign and re-strategize.

When you sell swag rather than give it away, loyal customers are getting the word out about your company by financially supporting your business. However, if you’re going to ask customers to pay to promote your business, you have to offer something that is worth paying for. Having a compelling logo and design that people want to buy gets people talking about your business.

About the Author: Gary Austin can provide your company or organization with the best promotional pens in the industry. Visit http://www.thepenguy.com/promotional/ to find out more.