Attracting customers to your website is a vital activity for your business. However, to attract the customer you have to first interact with them. This requires you to be in the same place as they are.
Conducting your marketing on channels where you know your target audience is going to be, will enable you to run more cost effective and successful marketing campaigns.
Find out how you can go about in saving costs with more effective marketing in this blog post.
Why Is It Important To Know Where Your Customer Is?
You want to concentrate your marketing on those you know will be interested in your product. Spending energy and funds on other customer demographics could be wasteful.
Knowing where you customer is spending their time allows you to streamline your marketing efforts to target only those networks your target audience visit. This will improve the conversion rate and lower your marketing costs giving your efforts a higher return on investment.
Three Examples Of Good Marketing
Many big brands have successfully tailored their marketing so the majority of their marketing efforts are directed at those who were interested in their products.
When the virtual storage system Dropbox launched in 2007 the founder, Drew Houston, knew he had to reach early technology adopters. To do this he targeted users on Digg, where many of these people socialised.
Before even starting on the development of the product, he created a video advertising how his software could help the Digg users with their storage needs. It was an overnight success. The waiting list for using the new technology went from 5,000 subscribers to over 75,000 subscribers. Even Houston was surprised at the results.
In addition to the Digg video, Houston used a Hacker News post to advertise the new product. When he analysed his copmpany’s success he came up with a shortlist of what helped him become a success. One of the key points he noticed was that he marketed where his target audience was.
Another company, Airbnb, launched by promoting their business in a similar fashion and concentrated their marketing efforts on sites their customers would be.
The company launched in 2007 and almost immediately became a $1 billion company.
This company took the unusual step of promoting their new company on Craigslist and contacted those offering their homes for rent on the popular listing site. An email would be sent apparently from a random person. The email was actually from a member of the Airbnb team. The email would include the URL for the website, telling the recipient it was a great site.
This tactic has divided some business critics. Some claim the emails are spam whereas others think it is a logical business practice. However, after sixteen months there was no sign of negativity in the company’s valuation.
A final example would be ProFootballTalk. Mike Florio understood that his target market would be listening to radio commentary of their favourite team’s game. Therefore he ensured he appeared on as many Football radio shows as possible.
Mike Florio would rarely discuss his website; instead the hosts of the show would mention the website at the beginning and the end of the show as a way of introducing Mike.
This made his activities seem less like marketing. Yet Mike knew passionate fans would remember his site’s name and search for it online – gaining him significant traffic.
All of these examples have one thing in common. They targeted one or two marketing platforms where the business’ target audience would be. The results allowed the businesses to gain a large proportion of the audience and succeed in their industries.
Where Might Your Customer Be?
Individuals in your target audience are all likely to have numerous behaviours in common. Research has proven certain demographics or interest groups do have set patterns. For instance, each social media platform has a preferred user group. Google+ tends to be for the older population whereas Twitter is generally used more by the under 30s.
These statistics are basic and there are certainly ways in which you refine your choices for interacting with your customers. You could attempt to discover which hashtags or users your customers are following on Twitter to refine your campaign.
Social media isn’t the only place where you can find your customers. Online forums, blogs, events such as industry conferences and even where they go shopping and what they read are options to consider.
Discovering which events your audience attend, for example, can allow you to meet and network with potential clients. By understanding your audience’s reading habits you can determine which online and offline publications to use for advertising.
How To Find Out Where Your Customer Is Spending Their Time
It takes careful market research to identify exactly where your customer is spending the majority of their time. Start by asking your current customers in general conversations. You could also run a competition where the customer has to answer some lifestyle questions for a chance to win a prize.
Alternatively you could go into the market and conduct focus groups, surveys or hire a market research company to do this for you.
From your research, you should understand exactly where your customers are spending the majority of their time and what they are doing there. For instance: are they spending time on a social platform to discuss the best ways to look after their pets?
From there you can develop a marketing strategy, which will not only be delivered to your target audience but also appeal to them.
Conclusion
Identifying exactly where you customers are spending their time and what they are interested in will cut costs and offer higher conversion rates for quick business growth.
Discover the information to take your marketing to your audience through market research and talking to your customers. Then implement this in your customer acquisition campaigns. From there you will see significant growth in your business.
Take Action:
- Conduct some market research to know where your customers spend their time.
- Integrate your marketing in their most frequented places to engage with your target audience.
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