Marcelo Quintana
The digital marketing world is growing and evolving at lightning speed. New audiences are emerging, new channels are emerging, and old tactics are changing. Keeping up with all the changes is challenging for marketers but also a great opportunity to re-think what we’re doing and how we’re doing it. The last couple of years have been marked by audience targeting as the main focus when creating a digital strategy. And for good reason: The amount of data available about people has exploded, making it easier than ever to segment them into smaller and more specific groups according to their interests, habits, and other attributes that marketers can target with ads or content. But targeting your audience isn’t enough anymore. In order to keep growing as an organization or brand you need to consider six key things when you’re creating a digital marketing audience.
Know your business goals
When you start out with defining your audience you first need to know the business goals for your digital marketing efforts. You need to consider both short-term and long-term goals. Short-term goals are for the next quarter, or even month. This is when you want to see results and improve your conversion rates. Long-term goals focus on the next year or even further into the future. For example, if you’re a B2B company, you might have long-term goals like increasing brand awareness or putting your company at the top of the list when people are searching for products or services like yours. Your short-term goals may focus on getting web visitors to turn into leads or customers.
Define the types of audiences you want to reach
Once you’ve considered your business goals you can start to define the types of audiences that you want to target. You may want to look at different pillars of your business, such as your website, email marketing, social media, and so on. You may also want to consider different strategies for each pillar, such as lead generation for your website or brand awareness for social media. When you start to break it down like this you’ll have a better idea of the type of audiences that you want to reach. Think about what their interests, attitudes, or brand associations are. You can then target these people with your digital marketing efforts to reach these audiences with your content and ads.
Estimate the size of your target audience
After you’ve defined the types of audiences you want to reach you can start to estimate the size of these groups. You can do this by conducting some research to see how many people or potential customers fall into each group. How many people read your blog? How many people are on your email list? What are the demographics of your social media followers? You can collect this information yourself, or you can also use tools that can help you estimate the size of each group.
Determine which channels are best for each audience
After you’ve estimated the size of the different audiences you want to reach you can start to determine which channels are best for each group. This includes considering not only what channels are available but also what social media or content types are best for each group. Some channels may be better for younger audiences while others may be better for older people. Some channels may be better for parents while others may be better for millennials. For example, you can create different content types for your email marketing channel. You can then choose which type of content is best for each audience. You may want to create different types of content for your blog, social media posts, email marketing, or other channels.
Create a digital marketing mix for each audience
After you’ve considered all of the above you can start to create a digital marketing mix for each audience. You may want to create a different digital marketing mix for each audience depending on the size of each group. For example, you may have an email list of around 10,000 subscribers and segment these people into different groups. You can then create a different digital marketing mix for each group. For example, if you are trying to reach people in a B2B industry, you can segment your audience into groups such as salespeople, marketing managers, and product managers. You can target each group with different types of content and through different channels.
Conclusion
The digital marketing landscape is constantly changing and evolving. New audiences are emerging, new channels are emerging, and old tactics are changing. The rise of artificial intelligence and machine learning has led to an increased focus on creating a digital marketing audience that can be personalized and segmented to meet each person’s unique needs. In order to keep growing as a business, it’s important to keep up with the latest digital marketing trends and changes.
