You can find a lot of advice and articles on the Internet on how to find a reliable professional or company to do a job or get a product. However, we can no longer find much information on how a business can choose its customer base, although this is a key issue for a business to succeed.
The Internet has fundamentally changed the views and experiences of marketing. What was successful in the written media in many cases in the online media did not bring the expected results. In contrast, countless new, powerful options have become available on the Internet that could not have been dreamed of in offline media. In online media, we have a much greater opportunity to advertise in a targeted way, and the result can be measured accurately, while the advertising value of offline media is much more difficult to measure.
Define the target group
The majority of small and medium-sized enterprises agree that they would prefer to carry out marketing activities only towards their target group.
Nevertheless, only a subset of these businesses map out who their true target group is. When analyzing the target group, it is also worthwhile to determine whether this circle has definable internet habits, what is its style, what are the main needs (for which our company can provide a solution).
Marketing language
If our potential clientele can be well defined, it is important to make sure that our marketing materials are worded in a way that is understandable to them. eg: If our target group is rebellious young people, try to use their language and refrain from a restrained, diplomatic style. If a professional circle is our target group, use professional language in our marketing materials as it will make our business more credible.
If our service can be of great interest and the range of potential customers cannot be narrowed down, we should try to target more demanding, better paying customers. For this, our marketing tools must also suggest sophistication and quality. For example, a website with a dressing gown and a lot of spelling mistakes will repel more demanding customers.
Poorly chosen language can create a cultural divide that separates our company from potential customers. When choosing the right marketing language, you need to pay attention to both the design elements and the textual content.
Mapping Internet Habits
A significant portion of businesses can use targeted marketing by mapping the Internet habits of their target audience. The easiest way to do this is with the “think with your customer’s head” principle, but of course we get a much more accurate picture with an online research job, possibly market research. If we determine which portals our target audience prefers to visit or how they search for services related to our company, we have already limited the specific place (s) where we should advertise.
If your target audience is made up of several well-defined circles, you may want to reach them with different, targeted advertising campaigns.
The easiest and most effective way to use search engine marketing and social marketing elements in targeted marketing is that if you have more time, you can find countless effective advertising opportunities with the right research.
Social marketing
Different social sites (Facebook, Google+, etc.) have very precise targeting options for marketing.
For example, for Facebook ads, you can set the age, education, relationship status, and more of your audience to personalize your address.
Search engine marketing
The essence of search engine marketing is that we offer our service to those who are looking for our service on the Internet. The goal is for someone to type a word in our search engine that expresses our company’s service, and that user will see our company in the search engine. This can be done in two ways. One of the options is search engine optimization, in which case our company will appear among the natural results. The other option is paid advertising (such as Google Adwords), in which case our company will appear above or next to natural results. The two elements of search engine marketing complement each other perfectly, so it’s worth using them together.
Overall, therefore, we can state as a basic rule that the composition of our clientele is not a matter of chance. Consciously or unknowingly, we shape our customer base ourselves.