How to Simultaneously Reach More Than One Target Audience
Reaching your exact target audience is the goal of nearly every marketing guru you can name. However, there are times when you have multiple audience segments but a limited budget. How can you simultaneously reach more than one group of people with diverse interests?
There are around 240,440 marketing managers in the United States. Every day, consumers are faced with thousands of messages from marketers, as well as a variety of companies. People learn to tune out all this noise, so you have to be savvy with how you reach people as well as unique in your approach. It’s a tall order for anyone.
You can check one thing off your list, though — reaching your particular buyer personas all at one time. Here are seven simple ways to reach more than one target audience at a time.
1. Look for Similarities
Pull out the buyer personas for your target audiences. Look at the behavior patterns, interests, geographic location and any other details you have on each persona. Circle any similarities between the groups. For example, you might find that your millennial and baby boomer customers both love a good story. You can then tap into this correlation and focus on brand storytelling.
2. Choose a Cause
What do you care about as a brand? If your goal is to help people reduce their carbon footprint, then you might embrace a cause such as planting trees in your local community. Consider causes your customers care about. Conduct a few surveys and figure out a charity or objective they all share. Start a movement and bring your employees on board. People are more likely to support a brand that believes in something they are invested in.
3. Focus on Generation Z
One technique you can try is focusing on the preferences of the younger generation and then weaving in the needs of your older audience. For example, Generation Z likes a simple, uncluttered look for a storefront or website. This isn’t something your Gen Xers or millennials would be opposed to, so go with the simpler design. Gen Z appreciates the ability to share on social media, so adding share buttons or creating ads on various platforms is a good way to reach them. Is this something that would turn off your older customers? Probably not, so don’t be afraid to focus on social.
Run each marketing option through the lens of whether Gen Z prefers it and then through the thought process of whether it would be offensive to other generations you serve. It’s OK to focus on the younger generation, but don’t do so to the detriment of others.
4. Tweak Your Products
Companies that sell products to different geographic regions may choose to slightly tweak their offerings for specific customer needs. One example of this type of product modification can be seen in Ford Motor Co. products and many other car manufacturers. The automobiles available overseas are slightly different than what is available in the United States. The vehicles might be smaller, and the steering wheel is often on the opposite side of the car. Think about ways you might tweak your products for specific segments of your customer base.
You then have to figure out how to market your product so it has mass appeal while letting consumers know you offer some customization to make sure the item is exactly what they need.
5. Watch for Audience Overlap
A mistake a lot of marketing firms make is creating an audience overlap on social media sites, such as Facebook. Perhaps you’ve created a few different ad sets meant to reach different segments. However, you wind up marketing to the same people with various offers. You’re basically placing ads that compete against each other for attention, and you may find that neither is very successful.
This most often occurs when you create one ad set geared at interests, another at demographics and a third at a lookalike audience. Facebook offers the ability to compare and tweak your audience to avoid this. Other social media sites may not provide the same, in which case you should limit your ads to one segment at a time unless you’re trying to compare how different advertisements perform.
6. Review Your Segments
When you first started your business, you may have looked at several groups you could sell to. However, as time goes on, you might find you mainly service only one or two groups. Take a hard look at the different segments you’re marketing to. Do they all still serve your current business goals? It’s often hard to let that handful of people a year that come to you go, but it might be in the best interest of future growth. You can still sell to them should they land on your doorstep, but you simply don’t include them in your marketing mix.
7. Gather More Data
Around 61% of marketers have a hard time gathering enough data and implementing it into their work. The more information you have on your customer groups, the better you’ll be able to segment them. Once they are in individual groups based on interests, demographics or other behaviors, you can offer more personalized service to them.
Look for Patterns
The key to reaching multiple audiences with the same amount of effort is digging into the facts. Poll your customers, study internal data and look at analytics. As you start to notice patterns, you’ll better know how to serve a specific group and pinpoint things that overlap. When you see a repeated effort, eliminate it and put your time and energy toward creating stronger marketing campaigns.
Lexie is a web designer and UX strategist. She loves taking her goldendoodle on long runs and checking out local flea markets. Visit her blog, Design Roast, and follow her on Twitter @lexieludesigner.
