One of the first rules in marketing is understanding who you are talking to, and tailoring your brand message to that person. If this isn’t done initially then the communicating of your brand can be off message, off target and will not yield the results you are after.
So before you set out to begin a new campaign, communications or creative piece, ensure you follow these steps to define who your market is made up of.
You may be thinking that you have multiple groups you wish to target. With multiple market segments, we create buckets of clients.
In each bucket start by including the following information:
- Particular types of people (cultural groups, demographics, etc.)
- Which geographical areas (be as specific as possible)
- Around tight market sectors (e.g. employment types)
- Interests
Then what I suggest is you create a profile of a person in each of those buckets to put a real person feel to who you are targeting. For example:
Sarah is a 34 year old woman, married to her husband Paul and they have two young sons aged 4 and 6. Sarah is a HR Manager and works 4 days a week in the city. She travels to and from work in her Kia Sportage after doing drop offs to kindy and school en route to work. She listens to podcasts on her way into work and the mainstream FM radio station on her way home. She does online grocery shopping and spends her weekends visiting friends with her family, shopping centres, children’s birthday parties and parks with her children. Evenings consist of watching Netflix and other streaming content with her husband once the reset for the next day has finished. They live in a suburban home, which they have a mortgage on. They enjoy the occasional meal out at a mid range restaurant, family friendly restaurants with the children and online ordering of wine. Travel consists of family friendly resorts, mainly local however International travel with the right deal would be considered. With the large network of friends, present buying seems as though it is never ending, and online shopping is often utilised.
Once you have profiled this person to this extend we can understand a few things about them. Taking Sarah as the example, we know firstly she is busy – therefore any messages about marketing will need to cut through and be direct. Secondly we know she doesn’t watch mainstream TV so any messaging delivered for a TV commercial would be a waste. We know that she is looking at bargains and opportunities to make her life easier and less of a juggle. We know that she would be the decision maker for the groceries and gifts.
That’s just the beginning of what we can dissect about Sarah and as you can see by profiling the person to this level of detail we can understand the ‘Who’ of our market.
I suggest depending on the number of buckets / market segments you require you do this exercise for them all. Further have your team sit around and define this person with you. More views on this profiling will help cover off all of more elements.
One final point to make on this is – if you don’t understand your target market then go and talk to someone who is in it. Obtain this insight first hand and from this point you’ll know if your communication style is going to be right for your target market or segment.
Happy profiling!
