It’s not just enough to advertise your business and your products. You want to direct this advertising to the right people. It doesn’t matter how great of a shot you took if you aren’t aiming at your basket. You need to put ads in the world that don’t miss. Here are some tips on how you can reach your target audience.
Get to Know Your Customers
If you want to appeal to your customers, you need to know who they are. Start by learning who they are. Gather information from the people who buy from you to learn about their demographics. Consider a wide variety of factors, such as age group, income, lifestyle, gender, political affiliation, and race.
After you know who your customers are, you need to learn as much as you can about your target demographics. Where do they hang out? What vernacular do they use? What problem can you solve for them? This information will come in handy when you start to make ads that appeal directly to your target audience. You can use sales territory mapping to learn where you are the most popular. With this information, you’ll be able to put ads in this area.
Ask for Referrals
The best people to get you to more customers are your current customers. These are the people that are actually buying your product, so they are likely to know someone else who could need the product.
When someone checks out, always ask for the contact information of friends and family. You can send their friends and family a coupon to get in the door. You may also offer a discounted or free item to the person who gives you contact information of their people.
Use Multiple Platforms
Naturally, you want to use the main platforms that your customers will be using to appeal to them. However, most demographics use a number of different platforms. People are getting hit with numerous ads over and over wherever they look. Many suburban people will hear ads on the radio, see billboards, and see car wraps while driving to work. However, these methods might not be ideal for an urban dweller who doesn’t drive. They may be more likely to see signs in store windows, ads on the subway, and ads on taxis. You need to try different platforms so that you can reach both the suburbanite and the city dweller.
Create Ads Aimed to Your Audience
You have a lot of creative freedom with your advertising. You have the ability to create something specifically designed for your audience. Think about what imagery, what colors, and what messages your customer wants to hear. Put people in the ads that resemble your customers (or the customers you want).
In your ads, you need to do everything you can to appear sincere and credible. Use the right language and tone in your ads. You don’t want to turn your audience away by seeming inauthentic or phony.
Encourage Customer Loyalty
It is far more expensive to keep old customers than to acquire new ones. That’s why you should make a point to have the people who do walk in the door come back in. Get people coming back with a reward for being loyal, such as a discount or a free item. You should also get people coming back by creating a decent product. If your product doesn’t hold up, your customers will go somewhere else for a new one.
Follow Trends
When things are popular, you need to hop on the popularity as soon as possible. Remember when the Harlem Shake was big? Many companies started making a video. However, after awhile, the videos lost steam. Not as many people watched them, and they didn’t make as big of an impact. You want to follow the trends, and you want to take advantage of these trends at the peak of their demand. Never put too much of your marketing plan behind a fad, though. Fads leave just as quickly as they came.
Stick on Budget
You have a budget to stick to. Make wise decisions about what you want to spend money on when it comes to marketing. There are certain marketing tactics you can do yourself for little or no money. For example, you can manage your own social media account instead of hiring someone else to do it. You can also promote yourself with business cards and merchandise. It doesn’t necessarily need to be expensive to make an impact. As for the ads you do spend money on, think very carefully about the pros and cons of your different options to ensure you make the right decision.
Your ads are pointless if they don’t go to people who could make the most use of your product. Use these tips to help get ads to the right people. When they see the ads, you will see an increase in traffic at your store.
