It doesn’t matter how good your products or services are; if you fail to reach out to potential customers, your business is likely to suffer. To help ensure your promotional campaigns are up to scratch, here are four steps that will help you engage with your target market.
STEP 1: Profile prospective customers
To ensure you get your message across to the right people, you must have a clear idea of precisely who it is you’re targeting. That’s why the first stage in any successful marketing campaign should involve profiling potential customers. By engaging in detailed market research and collecting information from people who purchase your products or services, you can determine everything from your target customer’s age, gender and income group to their goals, likes and dislikes. Once you have collected enough data, you can distil it into specific personas that represent your audience. Depending on the nature of your business, you might end up with a range of different personas that can help inform your promotional strategies.
STEP 2: Choose the best communication channels
Once you have a clear idea of who you’re trying to engage with, it’s time to consider how best to reach these people. This involves deciding on the most suitable places and times to speak to potential customers. For example, if your target market is largely made up of corporate customers LinkedIn could be the most suitable social media channel to focus on. You will also need to look at which, if any, forms of traditional media you will harness and you may also opt to communicate directly with consumers in shops, on the streets or at their homes.
STEP 3: Tailor your marketing messages
However you decide to connect, it’s vital that you tailor your marketing messages so that they appeal to and resonate with consumers. Everything, down to the language you use in ads and social media posts, should be appropriate for the demographic you’re targeting. Similarly, if you use door-to-door sales techniques, the field representatives involved must have an in-depth knowledge of your business and be able to communicate naturally and effectively with the people they meet. At Appco, we are well aware that this is a vital component of our clients’ campaigns. That’s why we ensure that the self-employed field representatives who represent our clients in the field undergo comprehensive industry compliance and product-specific training on a continuous basis. This ensures they are able to speak knowledgeably and passionately about the product, service or cause they are promoting.
STEP 4: Collect and respond to feedback
Effective marketing is a two-way process; as well as speaking to consumers, it involves hearing what they have to say in return and being able to respond to their specific questions (and concerns). This is essential if you are to establish positive long-term relationships with your target audience. Listening to what your customers say reassures them that you value their opinions and want to make their experiences with your brand as good as they can possibly be. At Appco Group, we call this interactive and personalised approach our Human CommercialTM.
Engaging effectively with your audience can be a challenge and it will require planning, analysis and re-planning to get it right. However, following these four steps can make the process easier and, in turn, boost your relationships with your customers over the long term.