This subject has been discussed at length: target, buyer persona, target audience, potential customers… However, among so much terminology, it is logical that more than one professional misses the essence, the important thing, when proposing a strategy. of marketing. And what is important, you ask? Well, neither more nor less than know and analyze customers properlyas well as all those people to whom in one way or another we want to address ourselves, without forgetting that there are other audiences that it is important to take into consideration.
What audiences to analyze in a digital marketing strategy?
Often, we focus on a single audience when designing a marketing strategy, however, it is important to know that there are different people to take into account to have a truly comprehensive analysis.
First of all, we are going to differentiate different concepts referring to the public, which are often confused with each other:
- Target: This English word means “target”, although in the field of marketing it is used to refer to the target audience.
- Target audiences: It is the audience that we address with a strategy or campaign. Within a marketing strategy we can have different target audiences depending on business objectives, target markets, different products/and/or services, etc.
- Current customers: They are the people who have already purchased our product/service and for whom it is important to have a good marketing strategy based on loyalty with a double purpose, on the one hand they recommend us, and on the other hand they buy our product/service again. when they need it again.
- Potential customers: These are people who, due to their sociodemographic profile or other information we have about them, may need to purchase products or services similar to ours.
- Buyer persona: is the prototype of the ideal client. A concept that was born in the field of online marketing, more specifically ecommerce, but that can be extended to other areas.
- Other audiences: media, workers, influencers and other organizations or people who in some way may be the recipients of one of our communications as a company.
Now that we are clear about the difference between all these concepts, the ideal is that in our marketing strategy we analyze the Current customers in order to create a good loyalty and recommendation strategy, and the potential customers, in order to expand our potential market. Without forgetting that if we have several portfolios of products/services with differentiated customer profiles, we make a correct segmentation thereof. And for this, it will be very useful for us to create our buyer personaswhich will allow us to materialize those clients.
How to analyze current customers?
Collect all customer information that the company has. if you are a ecommerce or online business and you have it well set up, it will be very easy for you because you will have all the information that you have requested (at least name, residence and email) in addition to the products that you have been buying, the frequency of purchase, the abandoned carts and the average spending per purchase.
In case of being a physical establishment You can choose to create loyalty cards to collect as much information as possible from your customers, hold a contest or raffle through a survey or similar to get to know them better, or directly do it the old-fashioned way, taking as a reference what employees have perceived from the type of customers who come to the facility.
through a good email marketing strategy You will also be able to refine the interests of your current customers and get to know them better.
How to analyze potential customers?
Each type of product/service, and depending on purchasing habits, has a customer with specific characteristics. So, make a list of your product portfolio and identify those people who may be interested in your purchase. To do this, you can use:
Then, the studies and data that you can extract from the INE, IAB, Cetelem Observatory and AECOSAN (in the case of Spain) and other similar entities that exist throughout the world will also be of great help. I am referring to reports, such as this one on Millennials, which can serve as a reference.
How to materialize my clients in buyer personas?
Once we know the characteristic features thanks to analyzing clients, both current and potential, and we have seen them in depth, it is time to materialize them. We have seen their sociodemographic characteristics and general interests, but now we want to Create a buyer persona, an ideal client, for each type of product.
For example, in a lighting store, they will have:
- freelance electricians
- electricity companies
- Municipalities and other public entities
- Industry purchasing managers
- Construction companies
- Promoter companies
- decorators
- People who have just bought a house/flat
- People gone for rent
I invite you to read our post What is a buyer persona? where you will find examples and templates that you can download for free to make your work easier.