How much market research does your client do before planning and executing a new marketing campaign? Your client may think that they know their target audience. However, even if the title of your client’s target audience is the same as always, the demographics of the people within it may have changed somewhere down the road when your client wasn’t looking. That means that their ads might not be hitting home the way they used to. Let’s take a look at how to remedy this situation.

Why is it Important to do Market Research Before Creating a Campaign?

Target Audiences 101

Audience targeting is one of the main goals of market research. For those of you whose clients have never looked into their target audience (or for those who want a refresher on the basics), let’s start at the beginning. According to a HubSpot article, a target audience is, “a group of consumers characterized by behavior and specific demographics, such as female extreme athletes between the ages of 18 and 25.” A target audience could also be as simple as “Women’s Clothing Shoppers.” Basically, you and your client need to decide what to base the audience on, such as:

Purchase intent
Interests, such as hobbies
Subculture (“People who identify with a shared experience,” says HubSpot)

Why It’s Important

It's important to determine your client’s target audience is because that’s where the ad campaign plans should stem from. What kind of copy will best resonate with them? Is it formal or fun? What kind of products or services do they need right now to meet the current wants and needs in their lives? Which actors should your client pick to best represent the target audience in ads? Your client can’t properly decide any of this without knowing who their target audience is and its demographics.

Finding Your Client’s Target Audience

Help your client determine their target audience through market research. HubSpot recommends using:

Google Analytics: This allows your client to gain website insights into the age, gender, location, etc. of the consumers visiting their site
Social Media Analytics: You and your client can glean a lot from social media analytics, including:
- What social media posts have performed the best for your client? Based on that information, you can tell what kind of content your client’s target audience prefers
- What social media platforms have the highest engagement? That data could give you some clues into the target audience’s demographic since different demographics are known to favor different social platforms (for example, older generations prefer Facebook while TikTok is designed for a younger crowd)
- Who’s looking at your client’s profile? There’s the target audience! At least for that platform
Website Analytics: Take a look at the highest and worst performing content areas of your client’s website. That will show you what kind of copy works best for audience targeting and hints at who they might be.

If your client has a title for their target audience in mind (for example, “Women’s Clothing Shoppers”), AudienceSCAN on AdMall by SalesFuel can provide you with the demographic information of the members of that audience. No further research involved!

How to Target Them

What drives your client’s target audience? What purchases do they want to make in the near future? Is there an ad media type that resonates with them more than others? You can find all that market research and more on AudienceSCAN as well! No more guessing about who is all a part of the audience, what they want or what drives them. Just look them up.

Photo by Stephen Leonardi