So you have your online marketing thing rolling on or perhaps you are still setting things up as you go along. You learned a few things about SEO, you setup a pay per click campaign on adwords and your website traffic is building up steady.
You are also gaining some momentum on Facebook and Twitter and have recently thrown in a competition to gain some likes and following. You might even have someone look into Google analytics for you to monitor how things are patching up. That’s all great stuff and you know that you are following popular online marketing strategies by the book.
But allow me to be a little bit of a wet blanket here….how much do you know of the people you are trying to reach through your online efforts? Or rephrased in another way…do you know who your target audience is? And if you sell a mixed line of products and services…do you know which product or service matches which target audience?
Forgive me for perhaps being a little bit provocative but from my experience I know that this is by far the most common mistake and biggest oversight that companies do when doing online marketing. Big money and opportunities are wasted down this path. Unfortunately it happens even in large enterprises who have a whole e-commerce department with a staff complement of clever online marketers.
But why is it so important?
Online marketing, and traditional marketing for that matter, is in its crudest and simplest form the art of matching or aligning customer needs with how, when and where you place your products.
Now, the more you know about your customers and their needs, the more you are able to match those needs by, for example, knowing WHICH online channels to focus on (example which combination of blog posts, PPC, Display, SEO, Social, Mobile channels?). Or you might get to know better HOW to address your customers (which type of content and language? Personal, corporate, visual, schematic, etc?). If you are launching products or event campaigns then knowing the mass behaviour of your audience can give you information on WHEN to launch it (holiday, events, mobility trends, etc). You get the idea.
Now the most important point is this: You can press all the right buttons in online marketing and throw in hard cash but unless you know who your audience is, your efforts and spending will not be optimized. On the other hand the better the knowledge you have of your online audience, the more effective your online targeting is going to be and the higher your return on investment (ROI).
Start simple. look for the data in your own home turf first:
Customer insight is more about synthesizing rather than analyzing. What this means is that you collect small pieces of data and build the big picture out of it. This is good news since it means that even small pieces of evidence can lead us to a better understanding of our audience.
For example, if you have some sort of sales reports available you can use them to get a better understanding of how and when your product is sold. The more detailed the information is the better since you can extract more insights out of it – such as how product sales varies by region, area, sales channel, day of the week, season, etc. These can be little gold nuggets that help you start getting a better idea of how your product sells (even through offline channels) and how it responds to price, time and market.
Another priceless source of insights is a customer database if you have one (I know this is obvious but how often do you look and use your customer database?;). This could be a simple one such as a contact list with name, address and other contact details.
You might be surprised what one can do with a simple customer database and a spreadsheet like Microsoft Excel. You can summarize your customer data by demographics – that is gender, location, age (if available) and whether he or she is a repeat customer. Why is this important? Well for starters you get a ‘feel’ of how your customer base is composed. Is it tilted towards more female buyers or males in their 30s or whatever? Secondly a customer database with demographic details can be used to segment and target your audience with more focused marketing campaigns (think about using different content in your email campaigns for different customer segments)
Another very often forgotten pot of gold is your own staff (if you manage a department or company) – especially the front line staff who interact and listen to customers on a day to day basis. The natural born marketing or sales people will make it a point to talk to front line staff and take mental notes on what people are saying, lack or want.
Research the wider landscape:
Looking at your own data is a sound first step to gain insights into who your audience is and how they behave. For some online businesses it can also be sufficiently adequate. If your business and markets are more dynamic then you need to look beyond your own waters and keep notes on what’s happening in your industry and extended business circles. You need to look for industry trends and possibly emerging customer behavioural patterns. I’m sure it’s no news that customer wants and needs change all the time and are influenced by a wide variety of factors.
This is where market research comes in. Having a longstanding background in market research I know that some people shy away from market research because they are not always confident on how to use it and because it can be costly (depending on which project and who is doing it). What most people don’t know however is that market research can be customized to your needs whether you are a fortune 500 company with global presence or a greengrocer down the road.
If you are on a low to medium budget you can do your own in-house market research or if you don’t have the time then you can engage freelance people like myself to have it done customized for your needs. Either way the objective remains the same – understanding who your target audience is and how its needs are changing in different market environments (essential knowledge for product innovation).
Sources of information can be varied such as doing online research and looking into industry reports and white papers. It could be putting up an online poll on your blog or facebook page. It could be doing an email or web survey to understand customer perception on a particular issue, their attitudes and changing habits. If you have an established online community such as a blog or social network you can also invite members to participate in an online focus group.
Brainstorming:
This can be a follow up of the previous two approaches or can be done independently anytime. It’s also a good way to have more staff involved and share ideas which may otherwise remain unsaid due to busy routines. Brainstorming is excellent for putting together customer insights because it is based on synthesizing ideas and piecemeal knowledge into the bigger picture.
Concluding remarks:
There is no doubt that much of your online success depends on knowing your target audience. The lack of it is a very common knowledge gap that can leave your online presence unfocused and not optimized for success. Since online marketing is increasingly becoming a personalized conversation with your audience rather than a public broadcast it is even more important knowing who you are talking to. The bottom line is that you can sell your products and services remotely, through online channels, but you cannot sell them blindly.
This should be obvious (but often is not) to anyone who is doing online marketing hands-on. If you do SEO, who are you optimizing for? If you are writing email or PPC campaigns, who are you writing for? If you are adding content on your web, social or mobile channels, who are you addressing?
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Good blogging!