One of the bottlenecks that advertising agencies continuously run into is limited knowledge of the client’s target audience. In some cases, the target demographics are simple to work out. However, in many more situations, the client might not even know what the company’s target demographic is.
As marketing experts, agencies need to utilize their resources to discover what their client’s target audience should be, and how to best appeal to that group. Thirteen members of Forbes Agency Council share their secrets for unearthing the details about a company’s target audience that the client might not even be aware of.
Members explain how to really get to know your target audience.
Photos courtesy of the individual members.
1. Don’t Cut Corners
Understanding your clients’ customers and what drives their purchase behavior is essential for designing an effective marketing strategy. Take the time to review available secondary research, but also ensure you understand what problem your client is solving for their customers and conduct your own research. This includes interviewing customers, reviewing social media channels and analyzing data. – Anna Crowe, Crowe PR
2. Ask And Test
We jump into scenarios like this all the time. We simply ask the audience to gather qualitative insights and we test incremental elements on the site to figure out the likes, the dislikes and what holds the most weight in the eyes of the visitor. That information is invaluable when you are looking for long-term sustainable growth. – Justin Christianson, Conversion Fanatics
3. Do Deep-Dive Interviews
We have a deep-dive process for entrenching our agency in our clients’ industries. It begins with in-depth interviews with multiple customers that represent each major market segment. While time-consuming, there is nothing better to inform us, make our clients feel that we understand their business, and gain meaningful gems of information — taglines and campaign ideas — to use in future work. – Francine Carb, Markitects, Inc.
4. Immerse Yourself
To understand a client’s audience, agencies must jump into the fray. Sitting on the sidelines reading consumer surveys or waiting for a client to share their view of target customers merely provides a glimpse into reality. The only way to truly gain knowledge is through immersion — not only observing behavior and asking good questions (being curious is vital!), but also becoming part of the audience. – Dave Wendland, Hamacher Resource Group
5. Study The Competition
We learn a lot when a consumer engages with a brand: demographics, interests, intent. But what about the other brands these same audiences engage with? Browsing data is just one example of data that can be studied. What sites do your client’s audiences go to before or after they leave your client’s site? What can you learn about those brands that may provide a unique perspective on the audience? – Lori Paikin, NaviStone®
6. Build A Community Panel
The most traditional path to audience insights is market research, a field associated with slow processes and big budgets. But this space has changed. It’s easier now to get quick-turning, low-cost insights. Build a community panel to have an ongoing dialogue with audiences. Recruit customers to be part of defining the future. Engage a panel provider to be on-call to answer questions in 24 hours. – Justin Wartell, Monigle
7. Seek Out Both Positive And Negative Feedback
Social listening is a great way to gain insights into customer thinking, especially if you have the time and resources for a deep dive into social forums and conversations that are not curated by anyone in the same industry. Raw and unfiltered customer comments can be a minefield, but they can also help you easily spot trends as well as the perks and pain points that concern customers the most. – Hannah Trivette, NUVEW Web Solutions
8. Get Social
The best way to get to know your client’s audience is by analyzing their social media followers. Dive into their profiles, read the comments, see what resonates the most with them. These are the “power users” and “superfans” — they are defining the brand as much as you are trying to do with your branding, marketing, and advertising. – Fabian Geyrhalter, FINIEN
9. Understand The Audience Beyond Demographics
Start with a clear understanding of audience beyond demographics. Include psychographics, attitudes and behaviors and look into competitive market audience reviews. Then get your Google Alerts set up and use a system like Meltwater to go back a year or two with keyword search on the audience and the product and service. Then access deeply and continue with daily feed reviews. It works! – Pat Fiore, FIORE
10. Define The Perfect Customer Avatar
When an agency takes on a new project they should build an ideal customer avatar. Identify demographics, psychographics, pains and frustrations, and do audience research using various tools that are freely available. Simply put, if you want to see “what John Smith buys, you must see the world through his eyes.” – Qamar Zaman, KISS PR
11. Leverage First-Party Data
Clients have a wealth of information available via first-party data coming in from their websites, mobile apps and ad campaigns. By taking a look at this data and supplementing it with syndicated research from third-party tools like Resonate or GfK MRI, agencies can build robust audience profiles that can then be activated via multiple media channels. – Stephanie Rogers, MERGE
12. Use Data Management Platforms
Data management platforms allow you to monitor and process the actions and habits of your client’s audience, and more importantly, make that audience data actionable. Understanding the client’s audience via their data footprint allows you to customize strategies and build creative that speaks on a more relevant basis to them, which in turn creates a win-win relationship for your client and their customers. – Michael Hubbard, Media Two Interactive
13. Specialize In An Area You’re Passionate About
It’s valuable for clients to align themselves with an agency that specializes in one market or industry — for example, health care and health IT. You’re then able to work with a team that already knows your audience(s). Typically, there are only a few audiences that any product or service will touch in a defined area. For example, in health IT, there are providers, payers, employer groups, pharma and consumers. – Jodi Amendola, Amendola Communications
