Communicating effectively with your target audience is very critical to your business. You may have developed the best product, or assembled the best team, but if you have not been effective at sending your message to your target market, your business is unlikely to succeed. Kristina Vasilakis, a Business Communications Instructor at Indiana University Northwest discloses: (Read full story.)
“A common pitfall that business’ make, is assuming that the audience already knows the product/service that they’re selling and understands the benefits. Typically, fresh leads do not know who you are or what you do. By not relating to the audience, fresh leads are likely to go out the window just by neglecting their specific areas of interest.”
So, how do you send the message about what you are and what you do? How do you do this effectively? Let us take a look at what Vasilakis has on the table for us.
How to communicate with your online market audience:
1. Categorize your audiences
“Many businesses assume that they have ONE type of client. Typically, your audience is broken down into at least 3 or 4 audience types. Determining separate messaging for each audience type is the first step to relating to any audience. Just like in anything else, there are different strokes for different folks. So how do we begin to section out our main audience into smaller groups? Look at your client demographics and divide them into categories,” says Visalakis
Taking off from this advice, one demographic category that you can identify is the age group. You can also take a look at income brackets where your audiences belong.
2. Determine what motivates your audience Motivation is what propels us to move towards what we perceive as needs. The same is true with consumers. Marketing strategies take a look at the powerful motivations that can achieve those sky-high sales. So, before you embark on some good spending for marketing campaigns, Visalakis suggests:
“Before writing copy for a website, a brochure, or email blast make sure you understand what makes each audience “tick”. People are motivated differently– some are motivated by emotions, reaching goals, obtaining a product that makes life easier, or using a service that helps he/she grow. Whatever the motivation is, it’s important to understand what it is before any copy is created. Once the copy is written to tap into one of these areas, then the likelihood of sealing the deal with that audience member is higher. Why? Because you have specifically appealed to a need/desire that is not being fulfilled currently. Psychologically, this creates a desire for the product/service.”
3. Appeal through visuals This approach to all senses, particularly those more attuned to visuals. It helps to know that approximately 75% of the information that we obtain from our external environment is through our eyes.
“Some people are visual, so in order to ensure that you don’t lose them amongst a large amount of copy, add visuals that communicate your mission,” advises Visalakis.
You need to tailor-fit your way of sending your message according to how your different types of market audience respond to most effectively. That is why it is important that you don’t assume that consumer traits are uniform. The rule of the thumb, therefore, is “different strokes for different folks”.
How do you effectively communicate with your market? Please share in the comments below.
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