Author: Barbara Barilová
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Date of Publication: 14/10/2022
Kotler once defined the target group as a specific group of people in the target market. Actually, these are the people we want to deliver a key marketing message through advertising. When developing a marketing strategy, one of the first and most important steps is defining your target group. In fact, almost no communication activity should begin without knowing to whom we are speaking, because it is this that will determine how and what we say.
Targeting the right audience
The more we know about the target group, the better we can empathize on specific aspects. For example, it’s important to know how they live, what they think, what they enjoy and what discourages them. Therefore, we can reach them more effectively with a campaign. The most common and biggest mistake in marketing communications is trying to reach everyone. The term target group occurs very often in marketing. It isn’t less important when writing texts. You can, of course, write for everyone and about everything, but such articles will probably not have a significant effect on you.
Benefits of target the right group audience
You will get to know your customer perfectly. Most likely, you already know your customer, you know where they are from, how old they are or what their values are. It's not until you start writing for them that you realize you need to find out even more about them. There are many texts, on many topics, and if you really want to speak to your customer, you need to know what they prefer. You also need to find out how they behave in certain situations and what might be interesting for them.
You will get the attention of those who are important to your goal. Finally, are you using appropriate text on your flyers, on your website or in your on-site announcements, are you using your keywords? So, you're highly likely to win new customers because you'll reach exactly the right ones with the right texts in the right place.
You will meet the needs of those who should buy from you. Appealing to your target group means you can be very specific and avoid generic phrases in your texts. This will appeal to those who are short on time or those who want to be efficient. It can albo be any shopper who just happens to have one of their needs met by your product. Even though they may not have known about it before.
You will be understandable. Writing the right copy for your chosen target audience means, among other things, speaking their language and using the keywords they are searching for. Doing so, you significantly increase your chances of being heard by those you want to engage, entertain, enlighten and reach. Actually, they will immediately understand you. From there, it's just a step towards them embracing your message.
You choose the right communication channels. Do you know who you're writing for, what to write about and what words to use? You greatly reduce the chances of choosing inappropriate communication channels to get your message across to your target audience. Actually, you don't advertise a plumber on Instagram and a bank's private client product on a flyer. You already know your target group so well that you know what medium to choose to appeal to them. Therefore, this increases the effectiveness of your work.
Reference List:
LIU, Zhining, et al. Two-stage audience expansion for financial targeting in marketing. In: Proceedings of the 29th ACM International Conference on Information & Knowledge Management. 2020. p. 2629-2636.
TUROW, Joseph. Audience construction and culture production: Marketing surveillance in the digital age. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 2005, 597.1: 103-121.
KOTLER, Philip. Reconceptualizing marketing: an interview with Philip Kotler. European Management Journal, 1994, 12.4: 353-361.