Why Targeting is King?
Creating content is great and is of course, really important. Targeting however, rules the entire kingdom when it comes to winning the heart of your audience. When you look at today’s tech savvy generation, visuals seem to play an important role in helping one decide whether or not a brand is legit. Indeed, attractive content does a good job at grabbing people’s attention and anticipating if a brand invests in its identity. A nice photoshopped post will definitely make you stop scrolling and look at it for a few seconds - makes sense and we all agree.
But what makes you open their page and give it a follow? Sometimes it’s simply curiosity - social media is all about scrolling, searching and sharing. More often than not though, you press ‘follow’ because that page is subconsciously what you’ve been looking for. Ah, the magic of algorithms. Artificial intelligence is not the only culprit here though. That brand you just clicked on didn’t just pop up out of nowhere - it found you.
Sounds a little creepy maybe, but what basically happened is that you’ve been put in a box. Market segmentation helps businesses and brands simply understand their market better so they can serve you better. In a place where everyone's competing for your attention, brands do need to demarcate themselves when it comes to their content, their language and who they target. Don’t you get annoyed sometimes when you are scrolling and you see a completely unrelated advert about a product that you’ve never even considered before? Like a glow-in-the-dark toilet paper brand. So, what do you do? You ‘hide’ or ‘report’ that ad so you don’t have to see it anymore. This is an example of messy targeting. How dare they not know that you wouldn’t be interested!
Aside from how useful your product is and how attractive your business page is, if it doesn’t make sense to your audience, you’re wasting your precious time and money trying to advertise to people who really couldn’t care less. We’ve laid out what to consider when it comes to everything we mentioned above: Welcome to Targeting 101.
What is targeting? Long story short, it’s simply breaking down the larger population into smaller segments. It’s a smart way to choose and define wisely the unique characteristics of the people you are trying to reach so you can focus your energy in the right direction. Here are the ways you can effectively do it:
I) Do your homework and be specific. This will sound like marketing textbook stuff but it’s hugely relevant these days, especially in the digital space where it’s easy to miss the mark.
Demographic: Age, gender, education, socio-economic status, religion…
Geographic: City, area, region, country.
Psychographic: Values, beliefs, interests, personality, attitudes…
Behavioural: Spending habits, the products they consume, online engagement, loyalty …
Behavioural is a little bit trickier as it requires further knowledge and data – however, it is probably the most significant one. According to a study done by Blueconic “91% of marketers say that behavioural segmentation is the most effective when it comes to conversion, sales and brand loyalty.” Thankfully, marketing agencies already have this data for you.
We are giving you all these marketing tips so that you at least know about them, but honestly you don’t even have to do this yourself - that’s usually what creative and digital agencies like us, Mint Stalk, specialise in! And we’re often better at doing that than you (no offense, of course). In a context like the United Arab Emirates for example, we all know that the number of brands on the market is basically infinite. So where do you start?!
Don’t panic - as a leading creative and digital agency in Dubai, we are here to help. Of course, depending on the type of product you’re selling, you have to decide what is more appropriate. Should you opt for a very general audience or a niche one? In any case, it has to remain relevant otherwise you lose legitimacy and nowadays, consumers can be very picky and unforgiving. Us at Mint Stalk, we are here to make your life a little easier and less stressful.
Let’s start with something very simple: Create a persona. Doing this small step helps you establish what your target market is all about. This usually requires some surface research to sum-up the basics of the kind of people you are trying to reach. For example, if you are advertising for men’s underwear in Dubai, you cannot create a female persona because it simply makes no sense to do that. We’ll take the following random example: “Meet Adeeb, he is 27 years old and works at an insurance firm full time in Business Bay in Dubai. He goes to work every day, he is affluent and he thinks that there is nothing worse than being uncomfortable at work, so he values the comfort that his clothes offer him. He has sophisticated tastes and he doesn’t mind paying a few more dirhams on quality cotton underwear.” - This already separates your main audience to the least relevant ones in terms of demographics (27 years old, male, upper middle-class), geographics (Business Bay, Dubai), psychographics (hard working, values comfort) and behavioural (does not mind spending more for quality). As an underwear company, you know not to target a crowd that is too young, that lives outside of Dubai and that doesn’t care about paying for quality cotton underwear. It makes a huge difference when it comes to sales, trust us.
One of the best ways to do this well, especially if you’re a lazy person, is to approach a creative and digital agency. They often deal with companies from various industries and already know your audience before you do. They tend to offer invaluable insights and will apply the proper techniques to lift your brand to the top.
II) Differentiation. You don’t need to come up with the product of the century to be different. You can simply pick a common idea and make it better! Whenever you’re starting a new venture, it’s important to understand your competitors and compare how well you can succeed in this particular environment. In a highly competitive industry, you will definitely encounter more challenges but this is also where you can learn from them. For instance, if a company has been around for a very long time, they tend to become complacent and ignore their customer base thinking “We’ve been around for so long, we have nothing to worry about.” Well, this is where you can use that thinking against them and offer their clients your solutions in an innovative way. Again, this requires extensive research on the general sentiment of your audience to better target their needs and not make the same mistakes as your competitors. Keep in mind that you have to create a good value proposition: does your product occupy a big place in a customer’s mind? How did your new campaign make them feel? What makes you different from all the others out there? Etc.
Once again, you can put that kind of research in the hands of a reputable local digital agency as they often keep an eye on your market before, during and after your campaign has been launched.
III) Be attentive and mindful. It goes without saying that the world has become a sensitive place. Some people in your audience might be more open-minded than others, but if you offend this one particular influential person, you will end up with a PR drama on your hands. People are really good at pointing out when a company does something wrong, so it’s important to be understanding of your audience’s needs and how to address them. In the case of Adeeb, he needs underwear but as a local Emirati, he doesn’t necessarily want to see it advertised in public as it often shows parts of the body that might make him uncomfortable. How will you show him your products then? The medium of your message is as important as the content - is it more appropriate to show him on his private Instagram as opposed to a public banner on the highway maybe? Putting your business’ fate in the hands of a creative and digital agency is a safe bet. In the case of your underwear company, it would be beneficial to outsource this kind of work to professionals that are based locally in Dubai and who understand those important cultural aspects. Same goes for everywhere else in the world - it has to stay relevant. We’ll never say it enough.
IV) Be even MORE specific. Studies have shown that generic and vague messaging don’t do a really good job at reasoning with your target group. In addition to all the textbook stuff above, try and score wherever your competitors are missing out and never neglect the smaller aspects. Lay out all of the different places where your campaign will succeed and if you can speak to your audience better than your competitors, you are winning. If we take the example of Adeeb, his age group would fall within the millennial category. Therefore, we can assume that they are usually tech-savvy and are present on a number of social media platforms (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat). He probably does everything you would expect him to do on those platforms: watch videos, share memes, engage with accounts, debate on political issues, check out new brands etc., so how will you display your product/message to him? Another aspect to consider is the language: does Arabic make more sense for Adeeb than using English perhaps? Your message needs to be crafted to appeal to the people within his group. This way, you have a better chance of creating a deep sense of belonging, loyalty and respect amongst your focus group on the long-term.
Numerous tools are available online to allow you to be as accurate and precise as possible. However, some of these platforms necessitate subscriptions and constant monitoring, which can be time consuming, technical and exhausting. These tools are often already being used by us at Mint Stalk and other numerous leading creative and digital agencies around the UAE - we have excelled at using them and are already much more knowledgeable on what works and what does not, so let us help you.
To wrap it all up, the well-known serial entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk stated during an interview that relevance is better than reach. According to him, they are both important but not useful if the reach does not care about the product. And that’s the tea.
