If you’re new to digital marketing, reaching customers online may seem a little bit like shouting into the void. However, savvy marketers know that the reality is much different. It is true that there are lot of brands competing for limited attention online, but that doesn’t mean that you have to get lost in the shuffle. The trick is getting your advertising in front of the right people at the right time, which is known as taking an audience-based approach.
An audience-based approach isn’t about simply spreading your message far and wide. Instead, it’s focused on spreading your message to the right people. By taking this approach to advertising, you increase your chances of connecting with potential customers who are interested in your products and services and thus more likely to engage with your ads. With a myriad of digital platforms available, targeted advertising saves you time and money and creates a better impression of your brand for customers.
What exactly is an audience-based approach to advertising?
Although audience-based advertising is usually used to describe an approach to digital marketing, the idea behind it is not so new. Behavioral marketing has long been a gold standard used by marketers to make decisions about where, when, and how to advertise. An audience-based approach to advertising takes that same concept and applies it to the digital realm.
Consider, for instance, that your business sells baby clothes. Who do you want to see your advertising? You probably want to your ads to appear online on sites that appeal to pregnant women, new parents, grandparents, and young married couples. You may not want to spend money on advertising to high school and college students, parents of teenagers, or single men. An audience-based approach to advertising means considering these demographics and spending your advertising dollars accordingly.
Who is in my audience?
As with most marketing efforts, the easiest way to find your audience to create a series of customer profiles to represent the different kinds of buyers you serve. If you have been routinely collecting demographic information about your customers through things like loyalty programs, zip codes from purchases, and social media follows and interactions, then you likely have a head start on creating an audience profile.
There are many different factors you can consider when building audience profiles, but some helpful places to start are:
- Age
- Location
- Language
- Gender
- Income level
- Profession
You can also build customer profiles around their experiences with your brand. For example, you may wish to target one kind of advertising to new customers to increase awareness of your brand in a new sector of potential buyers. You may also want to target advertising to an audience that’s already purchased of your products or otherwise engaged with your brand. The benefit of these distinctive audiences is that your advertising becomes more relevant to the people who see it, so you can connect with the right people in the right ways.
If you find yourself lacking the data to create detailed customer profiles, then consider adding some more opportunities for collection. Launching a loyalty program or having a promotion that requires people to register to receive a discount are both great ways to solicit information from customers in a way that doesn’t feel obtrusive and that rewards them for engaging with you.
How does audience-based advertising benefit business owners?
For business owners, advertising with a focus on reaching targeted audiences brings many benefits. Some of the biggest advantages include:
- Better returns on advertising investments. ROI is especially important in digital advertising. You wouldn’t take an ad in a print magazine that doesn’t resonate with your customer base, but many businesses spend money on digital advertising on sites that are equally irrelevant, because they believe that the only goal of online marketing is being as visible as possible. Instead of rolling the dice on advertising that may or may not be seen by your base, audience-based advertising puts your ad in front of the right people, so you get more clicks and better returns on your marketing costs.
- Loyal customer base. Customers like brands that give the impression of understanding their needs and wants. If your advertising is targeted to the right audience, your customers will encounter you in the places they frequent. Seeing your brand messaging again and again will help them internalize loyalty to your brand and think of you when it’s time to make a purchase.
- Improved message targeting. Audience-based advertising lets you diversify your ad spending so that you’re reaching different groups on different platforms with information that is specifically relevant to them.
An additional benefit of audience-based advertising is the data collection you get you’re your campaigns. Which ads received the largest numbers of clicks? Which ads converted more clicks into purchases? This information provides invaluable insight about your customers, where they are, and what they respond to. In this sense, audience-based advertising gets better every time you do it, since each campaign brings you more information that helps you refine your future advertising strategies.
Audience-based marketing is an essential part of doing business in today’s digital marketplace. Salem Surround is here to simplify the process for you. We offer free digital presence evaluations to help you see where you’re succeeding online and where you can improve. From there, we will build a strategy that will help you connect with your customers more efficiently. Talk to one of our specialists today to learn more about how we can help you surround your customers with targeted messaging.
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