Elements of the Perfect Targeted Marketing Campaign

Targeted Marketing Works! It’s something we all know now, right?

But then we try it, and we just don’t feel like it’s as effective as the research seems to suggest. The problem with targeted marketing, like almost anything in life that brings great value, is that there are easy ways to do it and there are hard ways. And usually, the most effective ways are in the “hard” category.

In order to target effectively, we cannot just take our customer base, maybe purchase some demographic data to give us additional insights, segment and target our customers based on what we know about them and our products … and then call it done.

In order to effectively use targeted marketing, we must find the right target audience for our product and then intelligently separate that audience into subsegments based on attributes like age, gender, marital status, family status, etc. and then design messages and visual presentations that are targeted to each of those subsegments.

First and foremost, effective targeted marketing requires that we find the right audience for the product we want to market. We can use data we have, demographic data we’ve purchased, statistical analysis, and last but not least, our own personal understanding and intuition.

Once we have identified the right audience, the next step is to separate them into meaningful subsegments, based on attributes like age, gender, marital and family status, etc. and design a targeted message for each. A very young audience might get a message that focuses on product features that appeal to a young audience and use language that is young and fun. An older audience might get a message that focuses on different product features and uses language that is more formal and informative. These targeted messages will result in the maximum level of interest.

But wait, we’re not done. We’ve found the right audience, created the right targeted messages, but it’s still true that we as human beings are very visual creatures. We’ve heard our whole lives that we can’t judge a book by its cover, but we can’t help ourselves, because that is how our brains work. We make many of our judgements about the world around us based on what we see. The visual appeal of an ad is probably even more important than finding the right audience and creating the right targeted message, because our audience may never read the message and find out this product is perfect for them if our ad doesn’t visually grab them.

And despite the fact that we’ve all grown up with one size fits all marketing imagery, where marketers just try to make an image that will appeal to everyone, including elements for as many segments as they can, we know that what appeals to a nineteen year old female is likely going to be very different than what appeals to a forty-five year old mother of two, not to mention what will appeal to the sixty-nine year old retired man.

Creating a visual presentation that is targeted to each segment will dramatically increase the odds that our target audience actually reads the targeted message we’ve created for them and finds out how perfect our product is for them.

*Including all of these elements in your targeted marketing campaign takes effort, but in the end, this is how effective targeted marketing is done.

Try it.

Your bottom line will thank you.

*One word of warning. You will want to ensure you avoid being too heavy handed in your targeting and personalization. Going overboard will, instead of resonating with your target audiences, feel like you’re stalking them. Create messages and visual presentations that will appeal to them, based on what you know about them, but maintain a professional distance.  

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