Gathering and analyzing data is important for everything you do. It’s game changing. It is especially important when you’re trying to branch out. Plotting out your marketing, determining who is listening, and how you can reach them is vital for any sort of effective marketing. It will help you get real results that pay off quicker.
Your return on investment (ROI) is much better if you aren’t shouting into the wind.
Who is your audience?
You know who your ideal audience is, but who is actually listening? Sure, the over 35 married men who are into sports have enough money and would love your product, but is that who actually looks at your products? Outlining the ideal information consumer for what you’re putting down is great for your organic traffic (which has huge benefits) and can help you target a larger audience that cares about your stuff. Gathering this information from a variety of channels will help you find the real consumer and that means being able to expand, and use your budget smartly.
You can find this information a variety of ways. From market segment data to just looking at your audience on G-Analytics, there are mountains of data that will help you find your audience. Combining different sources will help superpower your audience influx. For example, if you get some people from Facebook and others from organic traffic, meeting in the middle and building the two methods off each other will really help.
Knowing who your audience is huge. It will also help you determine how you can connect with them. If they are poor or old, IRL or social marketing will be your best bet, since these two groups are not heavy internet consumers, and when they are online, they tend to stick to news and social media websites. Your real internet audience (as long as they aren’t Russian bots who speak computer) is how you expand your reach.
Finding your audience is a vital first step. Even if you’re just collecting popular zip codes to start a flyer campaign. Put your money where it matters by gathering data.
Where are they?
Online and offline information matter for very different reasons. The information should be mashed together so you can make the smartest decision available.
You can use online data to figure out where people are coming from and how they are interacting with you in real life (IRL) business. For example, a lot of e-consumers in Arizona might mean that you should move to Arizona, not only for the reduced shipping costs but also for lower cost-of-business (potential cheaper employee cost). It can also help you plan growth potential and better benchmark your company’s upward movement. This is great data to have when trying to reduce your cost per employee. More awesome information you can take from online is dealing with how you want to grow your offline focus with IRL data, like using consumer zip codes to determine some location specific Google Ads. Big data isn’t just grabbing one fact and running with it, it’s getting a conclusive idea about your market and being able to make full decisions based on that.
Find your audience and go there is a great way to simplify it.
Denny’s did an amazing job with this when they figured out that their target audience was online at 2 am and hungry, then opened a really great Tumblr. Whatever person, or team of people, they have running that blog are straight killing it. Finding where your audience is online and offline means a more direct message online and reduced IRL costs if you are able to relocate closer to your base of e-consumers.
Can You Get to Them
Can you get to your consumers? I mean you totally can, but are you going to? It takes some work to connect with them, get in their frame of mind, and connect with them. And lots of data.
Displaying messages in the language that your consumers use, on a platform that they look at is hard, especially if you’re pure digital (people respond better to paper vs. screen). Knowing what sort of marketing will target your perfect audience is pure magic, things like flyers and catalogs in return customer’s boxes, social media manipulation, and some light blogging is a great way to connect with your readers. Especially if you’ve got some great informational content to help them choose or find you.
There’s a lot of great ways to connect with your audience, but finding what works for your audience is vital. Whether they like flyers or connect best on Instagram, helping them find you means being where they are. And finding that out (including the hidden potential markets) means diving deep.
Social media is a great way to get a feel for your community and get out your message to your audience. You can measure traffic coming from different social pages, and get more information from those interactions. Plus social provides engaged traffic, which is super helpful!
The biggest downside of trying to harness social media is that it takes time and you legitimately have to be part of the community. Which can be tough if you’re diving in like #whyIstayed DiGiorno did, or doing it purely on the base level. But it has big payoffs if you can invest the time and energy into connecting with your audience, where they are, and with things that they like.
Finding out who your audience is and how you can connect with them will help you start doing effective marketing. Make sure you aren’t shouting into the wind, and start your marketing with a data gathering surge!
