You would think that everyone knows that the more targeted your message, the better the response, and the more successful your marketing or lead generation campaign. But you would be surprised how often a
shotgun approach is taken to communicating your message to anyone and everyone.
To better target your marketing and communications efforts, you must carefully identify your audience or audiences. Identifying this target audience is not a trivial task, since the more specific you can be the better, but I would recommend you start by looking at the audiences you have been successful with selling to, looking for verticals where your product provides the most value, and talking to your sales force to find out the profile of their ideal prospect. The more details you can collect here the better in order to build a prospect profile.
Then it's a matter of developing the value proposition for that audience, figuring out a compelling offer and then and finding the best way and vehicle to target this prospect profile. I'll go into details on all of these area in subsequent posts but for now I want to focus on the media aspect.
The good news is that there are multiple media types and publishers that can be used to target your audience. The advent of social networks has made this list even longer but just because there are more ways to communicate your message doesn't mean the right people are listening if you don't target the right audience. If you're going to use Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and the many other networks, make sure your audience lives in that space or it's wasted effort.
Similarly, you need to find a publisher that has the capabilities to be very specific and will work with you to target your audience. If you're using a publisher that targets a general audience then you may be paying for an audience that's too broad and not targeted a not unless they can help your focus your efforts. What I find is better is to look at some of the more topic specific and/or vertical-focused publications because you can likely find one that also targets your audience with some research.
In the end, any successful marketing campaign can be even better by targeting the right audience by developing a specific audience profile, then formulating a simple and compelling message for that audience and finding the right media to communicate with them. While this isn't easy, it is possible and your marketing program will reap the benefits of this approach.
To better target your marketing and communications efforts, you must carefully identify your audience or audiences. Identifying this target audience is not a trivial task, since the more specific you can be the better, but I would recommend you start by looking at the audiences you have been successful with selling to, looking for verticals where your product provides the most value, and talking to your sales force to find out the profile of their ideal prospect. The more details you can collect here the better in order to build a prospect profile.
Then it's a matter of developing the value proposition for that audience, figuring out a compelling offer and then and finding the best way and vehicle to target this prospect profile. I'll go into details on all of these area in subsequent posts but for now I want to focus on the media aspect.
The good news is that there are multiple media types and publishers that can be used to target your audience. The advent of social networks has made this list even longer but just because there are more ways to communicate your message doesn't mean the right people are listening if you don't target the right audience. If you're going to use Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and the many other networks, make sure your audience lives in that space or it's wasted effort.
Similarly, you need to find a publisher that has the capabilities to be very specific and will work with you to target your audience. If you're using a publisher that targets a general audience then you may be paying for an audience that's too broad and not targeted a not unless they can help your focus your efforts. What I find is better is to look at some of the more topic specific and/or vertical-focused publications because you can likely find one that also targets your audience with some research.
In the end, any successful marketing campaign can be even better by targeting the right audience by developing a specific audience profile, then formulating a simple and compelling message for that audience and finding the right media to communicate with them. While this isn't easy, it is possible and your marketing program will reap the benefits of this approach.
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