The Most Important Person In Your Marketing Strategy

Many companies find it difficult to clearly define their target group. After all, it is essential for the success of a product or service to have a concrete idea of the people who are really interested in it. But how can you sift your potential customers out of the masses?

Do you know your target group?

In marketing, a target group is nothing more than an unlimited group of potential customers that a company wants to win over through targeted campaigns with low wastage for a specific product or service. It is no exaggeration to say that these people are the most important people in your working life.

What distinguishes a target group is the greatest possible homogeneity of its members in terms of their buying behavior. An important tool to define your target group is market segmentation.

From market segmentation to target group

Market segmentation is your means to approach your target group as an entrepreneur. This way you don’t aim your marketing campaigns at the overall market and waste unnecessary resources, but concentrate on a group of consumers whose buying behaviour matches your offer.

In order to segment your potential customers from the overall market, a target group analysis can help you to identify demographic characteristics (e.g. age, gender, marital status), socio-economic factors (e.g. profession, education), psychographic characteristics (e.g. values, opinions, lifestyle), media use (e.g. social media) and buying behavior (price sensitivity, buying range).

Does the Persona replace the target group?

The increasing advertising resistance among consumers poses great challenges for marketing. How to reach your potential customers without alienating them with offensive advertising campaigns?

Since the emergence of inbound marketing, the concept of the target group has been complemented by that of the buyer persona. In contrast to the target group, the fictitious persona is characterized by a concrete face — it represents the ideal customer whose interests, wishes and needs match your product or service.

What are Personas?

A persona — called “buyer persona” in classical marketing — is a fictitious person who represents your ideal customer. In digital marketing, the characteristics of a persona are based on analytical user data. Based on their needs, challenges and actions, you can align your marketing strategy more effectively.

With the concept of the Buyer Persona you can attract your ideal customers without even having to place an advertisement. Creating persona profiles can help you to get a better understanding of your potential customers. After all, it’s easier to get inside a fictitious person than a whole group of people.

Which characteristics are important for your personas?

Now you probably ask yourself how to create profiles for your personas and how many. First of all there is no set number of personas for all companies. However, it is advisable to define no less than three and no more than seven personas to capture all relevant needs and wishes of your potential customers.

If you want to address your potential customers with relevant content and win them over to your brand, you need to know your target group and their needs. With the concept of Persona you are no longer in the dark, but you can dive into the world of thoughts of your potential customers in a relatively realistic way and align your marketing more purposefully. Although creating such profiles may initially cost time and resources, it pays off in the long-haul.