Digital Doughnut Contributor 24 September 2014

Categories Data & Analytics

Finding the Right Target Audience for Your Marketing Campaign

Marketing campaigns are vital to business success - but are your data profiling tools delivering on their potential or are you simply shooting in the dark?

Marketing campaigns are vital to a business’ success – but are your data profiling tools delivering on their potential or are you simply shooting in the dark?

 

The Knowledge

 

When first brainstorming for a marketing campaign, we tend to run on gut instinct and our past experience as to who the intended target customer is. According to Marketscan’s Marketing Campaign Survey, 65% of those surveyed use accumulated market knowledge to work out who to target with their campaigns. But that knowledge can only get you so far – and a more analytical approach is required to unlock the true potential of your database-powered campaigns.

 

No Pain, No Gain

 

Think surgical strike, not a blunderbuss.

Use data profiling to identify key personas and ask yourself:

• Are there commonalities in your database relating to your campaign that can be exploited?

• Perhaps a pain shared by certain sized companies?

• Differing departments that share the same issues?

• Typical customer characteristics that echo your campaign’s message?

• Or specific geographical regions or types that reflect your planned mail-out’s theme?

Data profiling can uncover leads and avenues for your campaign that you may not have considered before. Let hard data inform your decisions.

 

A Thru B

 

If intending to deploy your campaign via email, use the ultimate in data profiling tools – A/B split testing – before the big rollout to ensure it will hit its intended mark:

• Create small sample groups from your overall client list.

• Use each group to test response rates:

From the persona point of view – a particular type of client versus another type to see who delivers the highest rate...

… to the pragmatic – one sample group receives your email in the morning while the other receives it towards the end of the business day. Which time delivered the highest click-through rates?

• Through A/B testing, you can draw up a targeted strategy that your final campaign can exploit to hit home its message.

 

Third Party Therapy

 

According to Marketscan’s Marketing Campaign Survey, over 84% of businesses use both existing and new data to flesh out their databases. But where is the best place to source new data? The benefits of bringing a third party data provider are far-reaching. They will:

1. Examine your existing customers and campaign, and spot new angles that you may have missed – remember, it’s a reputable provider’s job to analyse customer records from across all industries on a daily basis.

2. Cross reference your records with their own database, pulling in new and relevant leads for your intended campaign.

3. Offer a data cleansing service to boost your data quality, ensuring that your records are legally compliant and up to date.

4. Offer specific data packages tailored for A/B testing.

 

Remember:

 

• Your database is the core of your business.

• Use it to identify the customers whose pains most tally with your intended campaign.

• Use A/B testing on a cross section of your intended market to test if the campaign’s message is hitting home.

• Use a third party provider to help expand your customer records and aid in profiling.

 

Is your audience being properly targeted?

 

Ensuring your marketing campaign is highly targeted can be a challenge, but the guide ‘Conquer your Marketing Campaign Challenges’ has all the information you need to combat those highly impactful hurdles.