So you’ve spent time building your target audiences, and you’ve done in-depth research on who your customers and prospects are and where to find them. But something is missing, your marketing messages are going unheard, and you’re not generating enough leads. If this is you, we understand your frustration, but the good news is we’re here to help you better define your target audiences so you can reach those looking for your exact services or products.
1. Social media is a treasure trove of data
With 4.65 billion social media users in the world, which is more than half of the global population, social media platforms are one of the best places to understand your target audiences. After all, these are the people following you, interacting with your posts and even buying from you or signing up for services. With so many social media platforms available today, the key is to determine where your audiences are spending their time before investing money in marketing campaigns. Consider the following latest stats: Facebook has 2.91 billion active users, the largest age group is between 25 and 34 and 57% are male. Instagram is a close split between females and males at 48.4% and 51.8%, respectively, with most popular age groups between 18 – 24 and 25 – 34. And TikTok has 1 billion users, predominantly female and between the ages 10 and 19. If you’re keeping an eye on this platform, you’d know that its rise has been meteoric, and current stats show an average of 650 000 new users joining daily! This has a big effect on its demographics as it’s gaining immense popularity among older users, particularly women and men aged between 18 and 24, followed closely by the 25 to 34-year-olds.
With just basic information on the age and gender of your target audiences, you will have a good idea on the social media platforms they use. Zoning in on the TikTok, a long favourite among Gen Z, stats show that 31% of users from the USA say they’re directly influenced by the products they come across while scrolling on the app. Using this as an example, marketing campaigns on TikTok should be divided between specific audiences and those in close relationship with these audiences like parents, friend groups or partners.
Other essential information you can extract from your social media platforms include:
Location: Where your target audiences live so you know which geographic areas to target, the hours most important for your customer services, and when to schedule social ads and posts to ensure the best visibility and interaction.
Spending power: Insight about the amount of money your target audiences have to spend, how your pricing influences their buying decisions and if they have any financial concerns that you can address.
Interests: The things your target audiences enjoy doing, their hobbies and the other business they interact with.
Pain points: The challenges your audiences face.
Stage of life: The important milestones or transitions. Are they college students? newly married? new parents? divorcees? retirees?
Social media gives you incredible insight into your target audiences to better understand their budgets, interests, challenges and life situation.
2. Analytics tools give you unprecedented access
You may be wondering how to tap into the wealth of information mentioned above. The answer is social media analytics tools such as:
These come with a monthly premium and feature full audience tracking systems and advanced Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software that tells you everything about your audiences.
When it comes to free tools, you have unlimited access to Google Analytics and built-in analytics tools on various social media platforms such as:
Both paid and free tools allow you to drill down into data from your social media accounts to create improved, more targetted audience profiles.
For example, with Google Analytics, you can:
- Identify social media platforms that drive the most traffic to your website
- Identify the type of social content that generates leads and traffic to your website
- Access data on demographics to get to know your audiences better Calculate ROI on your social media campaigns
Although it’s not a typical social media reporting tool, it’s invaluable to those who want to develop stronger target audience profiles to drive more traffic to their website via relevant social platforms.
3. Update buyer personas or become irrelevant
If you’ve spent time creating buyer personas, you probably have an idea of your ideal customers, their pain points, and their decision-making process. However, once you create these, it doesn’t mean you can use them for the next 10 years. Buyer personas are not a once-off project. They will need to evolve in line with ever-changing technology, the rise of new social media platforms, the latest trends and even internal changes within your business. In other words, factors that can influence how your customers and prospects interact with your brand need to be considered when updating your personas.
After all, these are only effective if they are accurate.
We recommend revisiting your buyer personas regularly, at least yearly, to ensure they consistently match your target customers. If done right, you will be able to attract high-value leads and customers who you will be able to retain thanks to tailored content, messaging, and products or services that consistently appeal to their needs and wants. It also prevents you from hopping on trends or blowing your marketing budgets on social platforms that won’t bring you returns – this saves you time, and money, allowing you to focus your efforts on where it counts the most and makes the biggest impact for your business.
At ONCRÉE, we do all the hard work for you when it comes to defining your target audiences, building their profiles, and updating them regularly. Whether you’re looking to create more precise target audience profiles using social media and the built-in analytics tools, or you need us to start from scratch through market research, analysing your existing customers and understanding their purchasing path and pain points, we can do it all.
ONCRÉE is a Creative and Media Agency that blends creativity, data and strategy to help your business meet goals, drive results and ultimately grow to exciting heights! If you want to own your space and stamp of authority on social media, search engines, email, and any other platforms your audience uses, we have the expertise to make it happen. Contact us today to find out more.