Genie’s ability to seamlessly use data to target customer or prospects, implement marketing campaigns, and track results all in one platform is unique in the industry. There are a number of considerations to walk through when creating your targeted list.
Whether you built a list from Genie’s business or consumer databases, uploaded your own Customer Data, or you are using a combination of the two, there are three primary things to keep in mind to make sure you are targeting the right prospects or customers:
1. What criteria is most useful to identify the customers and prospects you should target with any particular marketing campaign?
This is unique to your business, but knowing the key criteria for identifying and targeting the right customers and prospects is the critical first step in your marketing and will help dictate the best message for your campaign. This will also eliminate customers and prospects that aren’t the right targets.
Start with what you know, even if it’s two or three basic understandings or shared characteristics that define your core customer base or ideal target. These should be your most loyal and enthusiastic customers.
Match your perception with what you can learn from our data and tools. Genie has two convenient data tools, that when combined with other common tools, help you target the right customer:
There are also some common online data tools that can help in the search for targeted audience. If you have an email list, website or social media presence, check what you’ve learned so far against what these tools tell you. For instance, look at the day of the week and time of the day they are already engaging with your online presence to think about the timing of your marketing. Some of the more common digital measurements you might already be familiar with include:
- Email opens and clicks: Customers or prospects that opened or clicked on one of your emails are showing an interest in your product or service. They are generally more responsive and more likely to spend more or convert as a new customer.
- Google Analytics and Search Console: For website visitors, you can learn a lot from Google Analytics or other website tracking software. Where are they searching from, what types of devices are they on (Audience Overview in Google Analytics) and how do they come to your website (Acquisition Overview in Google Analytics)? Once they are visiting your website, where do they go and what holds their interest (Behavior Flows in Google Analytics)? What terms are they searching first on Google before clicking to go to your website (Search Console)?
- Social Media Insights: Facebook in particular has a deep set of personal data on its users and their networks and connections. Check your People tab under Insights for good demographic data (gender, age, language, geography) on Facebook users that “Like” your page or have been reached by your posts.
It’s normally best to start with the widest set of criteria and to narrow it down from there. Here are some of the more common criteria in order of importance for finding the right customers.
One key criteria you are likely to consider regardless of your business is geography. Where do your customers or prospects live or work? If it’s a metro area, are there particular cities or counties that perform better? If it’s a city or county, are there particular ZIP Codes or neighborhoods that will perform better?
This criteria applies to both Business and Consumer targets. Other criteria can vary whether your target customer is consumers (B2C) or businesses (B2B).
Consumer Criteria to consider when determining the rights targets for your marketing campaign include:
- Demographics: What characteristics of individual consumers are most telling when you’re determining your marketing targets? It could be age, gender, marital status, or countless of other individual characteristics.
- Household Characteristics and Automobile Data: Household Characteristics and Automobile information can say a lot about a consumer. The size of the household, the presence of children, the make model or year of their car, along with other key data points could be very relevant for your business.
- Behavioral and Lifestyle Indicators: Dig deeper and narrow your targeting based on behaviors like politics, internet usage, mail, & online ordering activity, or lifestyle indicators like interests and hobbies.
Business Criteria to consider when determining the rights targets for your marketing campaign include:
- Industry: Use Genie’s search and auto-suggest function to target broad major industry groups or more precise lines of service.
- Business Size: Different size businesses have different needs and sets of expenses.
- Business Characteristics: From the type of business organization and its location type (headquarters and subsidiaries), to a business’s age, credit signals or brands, match your need as closely as possible when targeting.
- Leadership: Behind every business are the people who make the decisions. Narrow your business search by focusing your message on key executives and positions and their personal characteristics.
2. Know Your Message – What Do Your Customers and Prospects Want?
What you have to offer and how you offer it does not always match what your customers need or how they perceive their need. Step out of your business and put yourself in your customer’s or prospect’s shoes. What do they want from you? Part of targeting the right customer is trying to understand what they want so you can shape the right message.
For instance, you might have a product or service that you believe customers want and will purchase because of the price point. However, it may be the quality of the product or service, or even the convenience it allows for other things that really matters.
As the old saying goes, Features tell and Benefits sell. What benefits come to the customer from purchasing your product or service?
When you understand the customer, the benefits they get from doing business with you and the message that will resonate with them, you’re ready to choose your marketing channels and shape your message.
3. What Marketing Channels Work Best?
There are a lot of ways to reach your customers or prospects and Genie’s marketing tools focus on two major approaches that can work really well together:
- Direct Marketing: This includes any marketing where you contact the customer or prospect directly, whether it’s by a phone call, direct mail or email campaign, to give them the option to do business with you.
-
Digital Marketing: With almost every purchasing decision being influenced in some way by online research, digital marketing is critical to almost any marketing mix. Working with our team of data marketing experts, Genie gives you access to the two most proven and fastest-growing segments in digital marketing, including:
- Search Engine Marketing (SEM) or Pay Per Click (PPC)
- Programmatic or Real Time Bidding (RTB) Advertising
PRO TIP: Email campaigns are a wonderful combination of direct and digital marketing. Over the long term, email marketing also tends to deliver the highest return on investment.
Different customers respond differently to the various marketing channels. Some read direct mail email every day, while others will look at their email six times per day. Consider the marketing channel and how your message has to stand out when choosing the right customers to target.
Deploying these various marketing tools in tandem, with coordination and planning, helps insure the most success for your campaign.
Note: These are general guidelines that should apply to most businesses, but every business and its customers are unique. Use this information to help guide your approach. The exact details of your approach depend on the marketing message and your business. Our experienced team of data marketing experts have worked with thousands of businesses and area ready to help you with any of these processes.