When it comes to marketing, there’s no such thing as ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach.  

How and where you communicate your company’s unique value proposition makes a huge impact in helping you rise above your competitors. Successfully delivering that message comes down to understanding your ideal target audience, determining what channels they utilize and fine-tuning your brand messaging so that it speaks directly to them.  

To get started, ask yourself three simple questions:

1. Who is my ideal audience?
   While your company may have a wide range of individual customers, you can typically establish a handful of specific personas that make up the majority of your customer base. Consider factors such as gender, age, ethnicity, marital status, profession, income range and location.
   

2. Where are they most active?
   Once you establish your ideal audience, take a closer look at where those individuals spend their time. You may find that channels like Instagram and Snapchat tend to draw a younger audience, while LinkedIn can serve as a valuable resource for business professionals and Facebook often appeals to older individuals. Keep in mind, these are not hard and fast rules—the social landscape is constantly evolving so it’s important to continuously evaluate audience behavior and channel engagement.
   

3. What type of content do they like to consume?
   After you determine what channels your audience prefers, you’re ready to review what content captures their attention. For instance, seniors tend to respond to longer posts and videos, so you can be more descriptive with your messaging. But when communicating with younger audiences, on the other hand, copy that is short, witty and paired with eye-catching imagery performs better.

So, how does it all come together? Here’s a quick snapshot of how we put this process into practice for a few of our clients: 

• Ohio Masonic Home needed to reach an older audience: seniors 55+ and the adult children of seniors who are looking for Ohio-based retirement communities. We partnered with them to develop an outreach campaign centered around Facebook, where that demographic is most likely to be active. We also expanded ad placements to “Audience Network” through Facebook, which allows the ads to appear on third-party apps and sites outside of the social network. This work, coupled with analyzing the website user interface, helped skyrocket the requests for tours of the facility.
  

• Goldfish Swim School gives strong consideration to their audience, busy mothers with younger children, who digest content in a much different fashion, as their time is much more limited. Knowing this, Goldfish relies on short, image-rich social media posts as well as a network of curated influencers who post about their experiences with Goldfish on Facebook and Instagram – places where busy moms can quickly see the information while scrolling through their social feeds.
  

• Convenience store brand Circle K needed to reach busy millennial moms. Knowing millennials greatly value trustworthy ratings and reviews and respond well to seeing their peers experience products, they engaged millennial mom influencers in their priority southeast markets to help promote various store openings and seasonal products. Moms on-the-go are an important audience for the brand, so they asked influencers to "show" them how Circle K fits their busy lives–whether it’s a coffee run after school drop-off, grabbing hot dogs before a tee ball game or enjoying slushies on a summer road trip.

Whether you’re trying to reach parents, seniors, teens or anyone else—making an authentic connection and building brand loyalty comes down to reaching your audience where they are and delivering the content they crave.

Want to learn more about connecting with your unique target audience? Let’s talk. Approach us anytime at hello@approachmarketing.com.