Mastering Targeting

How to Refine Your Marketing Efforts After Segmenting Your Market

Once you’ve segmented your market, the next step is figuring out how to target the right audience. Targeting is where you bridge the gap between understanding your customers and reaching them with tailored marketing strategies. It’s a complex process, but one that lies at the heart of effective marketing communication and product alignment.

This article explores the nuances of targeting segmented audiences, from understanding key variables like demographics, geography, behaviour, and psychographics to tailoring your strategy for maximum impact.

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Why Targeting is Essential After Segmentation

Segmentation divides the market into smaller, more manageable groups, but targeting identifies which of these groups you’ll focus your efforts on. Your goal isn’t just to find an audience, it’s to connect with them meaningfully.

This requires:

1. Relevance: Ensuring your product or service aligns with the audience’s needs.
2. Efficiency: Avoiding wasted resources on groups unlikely to convert.
3. Precision: Developing marketing communications that resonate.

Targeting doesn’t just influence marketing, it also impacts operational decisions. For instance, a supermarket may stock different ranges of products based on the preferences of local demographics, such as offering more haggis in Scotland than in southern England. Similarly, if a store is located near a large expat community, its product range might reflect this to appeal to that audience.

Real-World Example:

In the 1990s, naan bread moved from niche ethnic aisles to mainstream supermarket shelves. Initially stocked in areas with large Indian-origin communities, it gained broader appeal and became a staple across the UK.

Key Considerations in Targeting

To effectively target a segment, marketers must dig deeper into the variables established during segmentation. Here’s how different segmentation approaches shape targeting strategies:

1. Demographic Targeting

Demographic segmentation is often the easiest starting point, as it uses readily available data like age, gender, income, and education. However, it’s important to avoid stereotypes and oversimplifications.

Consider Diversity in Demographics!

Not all 70-year-olds are the same. Some may be retired and less mobile, while others remain highly active, travelling or participating in sports. Similarly, a couple in their 40s might be raising toddlers, while others have children heading to university.

To target effectively, demographic insights should be layered with other segmentation criteria, creating a Venn diagram – where overlapping traits refine the audience.

2. Nuances in Gender Targeting

Gender is increasingly complex and requires sensitivity. For instance, one musical instrument company (I win’t be naming for obvious legal reasons) faced backlash for producing a pink synthesiser with a built-in makeup mirror targeted at women—a tone-deaf approach that alienated its audience.

This example highlights the importance of thoughtful, inclusive targeting.

3. Income and Premium Products

Income is a powerful variable for targeting premium products, often linked with psychographic elements like social class and lifestyle. For luxury brands, the focus isn’t just on the product but also on added value, such as:

• Loyalty programmes: Exclusive perks like free delivery or complimentary drinks.
• Personalised services: Harrods offers personal shoppers and luxury amenities to high-spending customers.
• Tiered offerings: American Express tailors its services based on customers’ disposable income, reflecting their spending habits.

For businesses like Aldi or Lidl, such strategies wouldn’t align with their value-focused audience. Knowing your target’s priorities ensures resources are spent effectively.

Behavioural Targeting: The New Frontier

With the rise of digital analytics, behavioural targeting has become the go-to strategy for marketers. By analysing consumer behaviour, such as online shopping patterns or website interactions, marketers can identify:

• Occasions: Regular, special, or one-off events (e.g., Mother’s Day, Father’s Day).
• Benefits sought: Different customers value different benefits in the same product. For example; a ream of printer paper may attract one buyer for its high whiteness, another for its compatibility with specific printers, and yet another for its recycled content. The key is to communicate the right benefits to the right audience.
• User status: Non-users, new customers, regular users, or lapsed customers.
• Loyalty: Identifying levels of customer commitment to tailor offers.
• Readiness stage: From unaware to ready-to-buy.

Why Behavioural Targeting is Effective

Behavioural data provides actionable insights, offering a clearer picture of purchasing intent than demographics alone. For instance, if someone frequently searches for skincare products online, they’re more likely to be in-market for such items, making them a prime target.

Geographic and Occasion-Based Targeting

Geographic Considerations

Where your audience is located can heavily influence targeting strategies. Geography impacts everything from product availability to marketing messaging. For example:

• Products like air conditioning units are better targeted to warmer climates.
• Certain holidays, such as Mother’s Day, are celebrated on different dates depending on the country.

Occasion-Based Marketing

Occasional purchases, like gifts for christenings or weddings, require special attention. In Catholic countries, christenings are major events, making campaigns around gifts for such occasions highly effective. While behavioural data may be limited for these one-off events, geographical and cultural insights fill the gap.

The Power of Combining Variables

Effective targeting involves combining multiple segmentation variables. Let’s say you’re marketing a high-end skincare product:

1. Start with geographics: Target affluent urban areas.
2. Add demographics: Focus on women aged 25-40.
3. Layer in psychographics: Target individuals interested in sustainable, luxury products.
4. Finish with behavioural insights: Prioritise customers actively browsing skincare websites or purchasing similar items.

This layered approach creates a precise, well-defined audience, maximising the efficiency of your marketing spend.

The Role of Benefits Sought

One fascinating aspect of behavioural targeting is segmenting by the benefits customers seek. This approach ensures marketing communications highlight the most relevant features for each audience segment.

My Favourite Example: Printer Paper

As I alluded to under ‘Behavioural Targeting” single product might appeal to various buyers for different reasons:

• A printer may value it for its compatibility with HP machines.
• Another might prioritise its high recycled content for eco-conscious clients.
• A third might care about its whiteness for premium-quality print jobs.

Each customer has unique needs, and targeting involves emphasising the right benefits to the right people.

Conclusion: Refining Targeting for Marketing Success

Targeting isn’t just about finding an audience; it’s about creating connections. By combining segmentation variables:

• Geographic
• Demographic
• Behavioural
• Psychographic

…you can refine your strategy to reach the most profitable and relevant segments.

In today’s data-driven world, behavioural insights have become invaluable, providing marketers with a deeper understanding of how customers interact with products and services. However, the nuances of demographics, geography, and psychographics remain essential for building a complete picture.

The takeaway?

Targeting isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach. It’s a dynamic process that demands precision, creativity, and adaptability to ensure your message resonates with the right audience, at the right time, in the right way.