Focus your marketing campaign on finding the right audience. Otherwise, you’ll solicit people who will never want your products and will complain about your marketing practices. Zero in on the many one-time customers and the customers who your company will form long-lasting relationships with for years.
Customer Evaluation Surveys
A survey may be your best shot at knowing more about your customer. Few business owners can visit customers at their homes and interview them on the spot. They cannot ask their buyers to fill out 10-page questionnaires either.
When you’re finding the right audience, you have to know the facts. Your best option to know the customers is to send brief, 10-minute surveys by email or over the phone.
Data Analytics
Continuously collect fresh data to keep track of your customers’ changing interests and lifestyles. Most customers never stay in the same place for too long. Many people can shop at your store for years, but if a competitor builds another nearby store with wider selections and more affordable prices, expect to lose a lot of your old customers. Collecting, analyzing and renewing your data is necessary to determine who your recent customers are.
Return on Investment
Determine the return on investment (ROI) based on recent sales, profits and expenses. You need this data to know for certain if a certain demographic is interested in your products or only stating that they are. Once you know the audience to target, review the ROI to determine the amount of money that you need to spend on making, advertising and selling your products.
IP Targeting
Geotargeting is a method of using a person’s current location to provide local advertising. This location includes the city, state, country, zip code or IP address. The purpose is to customize products and services that suit their local needs. An example is an online Web mapping company that provides geolocated maps to their users. A similar practice is IP targeting from a firm such as NYI – New York Interconnect. It provides customized ads to each user based on his or her Internet Protocol (“IP”) address. Geotargeting helps companies to zero in only on the consumers who will need their services the most. Your clientele is the foundation of your business. The first and most important task, before designing ads or finding a product manufacturer, is to find the right people to sell your products to. They will determine the results for the success or failure of your business.
Lizzie Weakley is a freelance writer from Columbus, Ohio. In her free time, she enjoys the outdoors and walks in the park with her husky, Snowball.
