Hitting your target
Defining a target audience from the market place filled with diverse consumers is central to marketing success. In this quest to determine who among this vast pool of consumers is most likely to purchase your product or service, many pitfalls can and should be avoided. Firstly, we can’t tell you how many times a so called “new segmentation” scheme has failed, for a variety of reasons—it’s usually one of the first things on the agenda for new marketing leadership. These schemes typically fail due to lack of socialization in the company (marketing owns the Rosetta Stone), or the scheme itself isn’t very actionable, and doesn’t quite inform all of the things its supposed to such as a brand, creative, or product briefs. Instead, it likely informs just one element, while the other teams are left to ponder and decipher and just make it up the best way they know how. We recognize the need for a target audience definition to set the direction and guide all of the elements of marketing, from brand to communications, hence the persona you see below.
Business customer (B2B) profiling
The purchase process involves more decision makers, similar to a head of household—where a mom is the key decision maker, the dad is the technical decision maker, and the child is the end user. To personify a target audience of companies we must understand how and why organizations purchase through the four main types of influencers:
- Business Decision Maker: holds purse strings
- End User: most significantly impacted
- Technical Decision Maker: integrates new solution
- The Coach: champion to guide the sale process
Additionally, there are 3 key factors that make business customer profiling special:
1. Business products and services and their applications are more complex than consumer products.
2. B2B marketers address a smaller number of customers with much larger consumption versus consumers.
3. Personal relationships are of critical importance.
What we do…
Through our A&U study we gather all the inputs to populate the Target Audience Persona you see here. We customize the data collection based on several variables, such as the category itself, competing brands, the type of product or service you sell, channels of distribution, and typical media and promotional strategies encountered in the category.
Your competitive advantage…
You will know your target audience as well as your best friend, their likes/dislikes, personality, frustrations and needs. You will know how to inspire them with a meaningful brand promise, engage them through communications, and develop products and services that fill voids and delight them.