So, you've decided on a product or line of products to sell in your store. Now we need to understand who the ideal target market is in order to convert website visitors into paying customers.
Demographic Targeting
Demographics are a segment of your targeting audience focused on statistical data. These include but are not confined to:
Age
Gender
Martial Status
Income/Education Levels
Location
Occupation
Targeted advertising with parameters like these in mind will help you serve the correct customer better than your larger market competitors. In fact you'll be indirectly saving money by reducing the number of unnecessary impressions while increasing your conversion rate.
Google Ads: Is a great resource for demographic targeting initiatives. It helps you target ads to a particular set of people based on demographic factors such as listed above. A great tool to help your marketing campaign if you're looking for a greater return on investment (ROI).
Psychographic Targeting
This marketing strategy focuses on targeting: interests, beliefs, attitudes, activities, and values of your ideal customer. This information can be more difficult to harness due to the lack of objectivity present. But with psychographic marketing, you can yield more opportunities that may not exist with demographic or geographic marketing practices. It digs far deeper into the ideal customer than the demographics you'll find.
One method to go about collecting this data is building a mind map. If you were to put yourself in their shoes, what might their ideology be? Speak with friends, and compare your findings with online resources to reinforce that you're on the right track.
Psychological targeting in action can look like:
Incorporating aspirational imagery and messaging
Reinforcing brand values
Creating compelling ads
Refining your social media audience
Behavioral Targeting
While both psychographic and demographic marketing helps you analyze who your potential customer is, behavioral marketing targets how that customer acts. This can include:
Purchasing Behaviour: How do they go about purchasing the product (ie. impulse, complex, rationalizing, etc.)
Spending Habits: Circumstances in which they buy (online, in person, appear when there's coupons/discounts, etc.)
Brand Interactions: Customer engagement with the brand (social media interactions, what page they visit most often on the website, how often they visit the website, etc.)
Benefits Sought: Does this product solve a problem for them?
Geographic Targeting
A strategic marketing technique targeting ads to customers based on their location.
This can be advantageous during current events such as seasonal changes, times of crises, and celebrations. As situations like these arise, digital consumption patterns will adjust, and if monitored appropriately, you can implement all demographic, psychographic, and behavioral targeting strategies to drive more traffic to your store.
Geographic Targeting Strategies:
Keep up to date with current events in the region your targeting
Displaying different languages on your website can yield more conversions (Chinese, Spanish, French, etc.)
Use Google and/or Facebook Ads to broadcast advertisements in targeted regions
Avoid marketing to areas where your target audience won't be (ie. don't waste money selling snow shovels in South Florida when there's a high demand in Colorado)