Are you in the process of marketing your business?
Business owners often place a lot of emphasis on finding creative ways to reach a target audience but may not give much thought to where an audience is, and how you can reach a wider number of people with one marketing strategy.
Recent developments in digital marketing have meant that audiences are now more fragmented than ever. This means that in order to reach them you really have to be proactive in finding and understanding who exactly they are, and which marketing strategies can be used in multiple channels.
How to learn about your audience
The increasing reliance on Google and social media by consumers who are looking to find products and services means that we now have more and in depth data about internet users and their habits.
Making use of this data can help you learn more about your audience and help you reach them more effectively. Although there are a number of companies who offer paid data services, a good basic place for small to medium sized business owners to start is by using a software platform such as Google Analytics to track and measure website traffic. By using analytics you can see how effectively you are reaching your audience, how many people are visiting your site, and whether or not they are converting.
The more you know about your target audience and how they use your website and social media channels, the more you can tailor your marketing strategy to help increase audience engagement and grow your readers and subscribers.
Marketing to your audience
Marketing has become less about disseminating a message to as many people as possible. It’s now about building a loyal and dedicated group of potential customers who you can reach through social media, email and other forms of direct marketing.
Building an audience takes time and work but a responsive and engaged audience who are accessible at the click of a mouse is one of the most valuable marketing assets you can build for your business.
The principle behind audience development is that they opt in to receive your content and they can leave at any time. This means that you need to work hard to provide them with useful content that can add value to your audience and build their loyalty rather than trying to sell to them directly.
It can be easy to focus on producing marketing materials and publishing them and forget to pay attention to who you are producing them for. By keeping track of your audience and taking a proactive approach to audience development you can increase their engagement with your brand and grow your business in the future.
