One of the most important things to consider when starting a marketing campaign is who the target audience of your message will be. Your audience will vary based on what you’re selling and why you’re selling it. It’s important to think about the needs of your audience and how you can solve their problems. Once you know how you can help your audience, you’ll be on the right track to selling them your product or service.
The first thing you’ll need to figure out is the demographic of who you want to target. Does the audience skew male or female? Will you want an older or younger generation? What socioeconomic class are they in? Once you can answer these questions, it will become easier to craft your message to include these groups of people.
Often, even when the target audience is known, advertisement messaging can be misdirected. For example, women are over 50% of purchasing agents and wholesale and retail buyers, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2010. But business-to-business marketing is often aimed at a male audience. If women are the ones placing orders, why aren’t messages being tailored to them?
Not only can advertisement messaging mistakenly leave a key demographic out, it can also target a group in a way that alienates them because the messaging has offended them. An example of this is the Motrin Mom campaign. Motrin released an ad implying that moms need Motrin because they carry their babies like fashion accessories, which can be painful. While the ad intended to solve a problem that mothers have, Motrin made the mistake of not considering how their message might be interpreted by their target audience.
When trying to reach your audience, you should know where to reach them. If you’re trying to reach millennials, your research would advise against you placing your ad in a newspaper. With social media ads and influencers, there are ways to advertise to your target audience that didn’t exist a decade ago. These social media advertising options typically appeal to women and millennials because those two demographics are the heavy users of social media. It’s important to note what media your audience is using in order to place your ad properly.
Oster and Associates has been advertising for 31 years and knows how to craft messaging in a way that captures your exact target audience and offers your product or service as a solution to their needs. Give us a call at (619) 906-5540 or email us at info@osterads.com to learn more about what services we can provide for you.
