Targeting is one of the hallowed principles of marketing. After finding out who your customers are, you need to know which ones to reach when you have the right offer at the right time for them. If you’re collecting data as your customer relationship progresses, you might have a start. But there’s more to customer targeting than just tracking the last purchase.
The first step to targeting is to acknowledge that you do, in fact, have a specific target audience. Suppose you run a health foods store. Not every customer comes in for the grass-fed beef. Therefore, you don’t need to send information on your meat sales to your vegetarian customers. This will not only save you money on your printing costs, but your non-meat-eating customers will appreciate not being bombarded with irrelevant materials. So, by simply identifying your target customer, you save money and retain loyal customers. Data Axle USA offers customer analysis services to help you do just that.
Next, go to your database and determine what you already know about your customers. There was a time when targeting meant age and gender, but in today’s real-time-update world, that won’t get you far. In the health food store example, it would be beneficial to know who’s vegan and who eats meat. Data Axle USA can help you target certain data, including hobbies and interests. As you begin to build a more complete customer profile, you’ll be able to target each individual effectively.
Finally, get creative. Social media will be a huge ally for you. If you’ve collected your customers’ email addresses, you can match those to permission-based public social media platforms. Not sure how this would come in handy? Suppose that health foods store knows that, among its existing database, the best, most loyal customers are female, married, stay-at-home moms. If you were able to follow these women on social media, you could see who is trying a new teatox, who is going vegan, or who just cut out gluten. Then, you could not only email them relevant specials, you could design targeted, timely social media ads. Let Data Axle USA get you started with an email list.
At the end of every marketing effort, don’t forget to analyze the results, and track your return on investment. As you get better at targeting the right customer, you will see it pay off in the conversion rate.
