Laura Hendrickson5 Tips to Reach Your Target Audience and Compel Action
Updated: Apr 6
REACH YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE AND COMPEL THEM TO ACTION
Isn’t that the dream; to drive so much traffic to our website that our phone is ringing off the hook or products are flying off the shelves? But visitor quantity doesn’t always transition into quality leads if we aren’t focusing our attention on the right set of eyes. Effective marketing is less about throwing many darts at a blind target vs. one dart at a specific target to get the bull’s eye. Want to learn how?
IDENTIFY THE PROSPECT
Reaching our target audience begins with identifying who they are. One effective tactic to do this is to create a persona profile and fill in the blanks. Profiling is not politically correct but, think about it. Buyers are biased, and we need to understand how they think and feel before compelling them to act.
A Persona Profile is a hyper-detailed statistical analysis of the person we believe we can most convince to click on our Call-To-Action (CTA) button and/link. These CTAs are: “LEARN MORE”, “BUY NOW” or “SCHEDULE A CALL”. We need to ask ourselves:
“If I had to pick one specific person in the entire world to pitch my product or service to – who would it be?”
Not the type of people or a group of people, but choose one specific person. Then fill in the blanks.
Name (Literally give them a name): i.e. Director Diane, Procurement Pete, Hungry Harry, Bored Barbra, Fat Albert, Thin Quin, you get the idea.
What is their age, gender, marital status?
Do they have children? What ages?
What is their annual income? (not business revenue, their personal income)
Where do they go out to eat and drink?
What are their hobbies?
What do they believe? (political affiliation, religion, charitable cause)
Who do they listen to or watch on TV?
What clubs, hobbies and affiliations are they a part of?
Remember, businesses don’t buy things, and companies aren’t consumers – but people are. This exercise will help us hone our strategy and budget to convince this person to click.
Be as specific as possible.
Do some digging on social media.
Stalk your prey and learn everything you can.
Let’s say we’ve profiled our prospect as Social Sam.
They identify as she, age: 27, single but in a relationship.
She has no children, jogs every day but still loves to eat real food.
She is a 60k per year designer by day who loves to karaoke on the weekends.
She is fun, energetic, and always surrounded by her friends.
The main theme of her social posts highlight her activities, but she is rarely in the frame.
Do we know enough yet? Does your product or service appeal to this creature of habit? This literally unseen somebody?
If not, dig deeper. What’s below the service? Not to get creepy, but public records have a lot to say, and background checks are cheap. Go down the rabbit hole to understand Sam by the people she hangs out with, or take stalking to new levels – follow her, connect with her, and get to know her more closely. Sam is our focus group. When we pay close attention to her, we’ll precisely know how to reach everyone like her; our target audience.
FOCUS ON PAIN POINTS
Now that we’ve identified Social Sam, it’s time to get the juicy information that will motivate her.
She loves to shop for clothes, but doesn’t have time between work and friends.
She has a hard time finding healthy, pre-prepped and/pre-packaged food when she’s on the go.
She actually loves to sing, but hasn’t found the right equipment to record herself at home.
Her life is busy and draining, sometimes she just wants to decompress, but doesn’t know how or when to fit this into her schedule.
A little self-conscious, she’d really like to know how to look better in her clothes.
Making a list of Sam’s expressed or assumed pain points, we can identify if our products and/or services would be a good fit and start creating some headlines, imagery and content that will specifically address her biggest concerns and needs. People have patterns; what are hers? This part of the exercise is about aligning your products or services with something specific to help Sam. What does she want or need that you can provide? What is she missing that you can give her? What is the one wish you can grant Sam if she asked?
SOLVE THEIR PROBLEMS
Now we’re getting somewhere. We’ve met Sam; we know Sam; we’ve uncovered her need. Getting her attention and steering her toward the solution is where the strategy plays its roll. But how?
Well, we know who she is, where she goes, what her routines are, and who her circle of influence is. Our strategy should be to put our ads only where Sam is looking. To be wherever Sam is, all the time, 24x7, like a best friend—offering advice, giving helpful tips, speaking her language, her lingo, her way. Our aesthetic is all about what appeals to Sam because she is all that matters. We can revamp or retune when Sam ages out, but for now, she’s the reason we do what we do.
All of that time we spent learning about Sam will help us guide her – and every other Sam in the world – to learn about us. Instead of wasting a ton of money running ads, Sam would never see, in a way, Sam would never care about, we are now in her head. It’s weird. Like she thinks it, and we’re talking about it – because we are, when she does.
Isn’t that how Amazon, or Wayfair, or McDonald’s make us do the unthinkable? They tell us we need it, or we’ll love it, and all of a sudden, we’re buying it. But it isn’t all of a sudden. It’s super subtle, quietly teasing, and tempting us to click. Now it’s our turn to get into Sam’s head and convince her we’ve got what she needs.
ILLUSTRATE YOUR PROFICIENCY
We’re probably not the only choice Sam has, so when she decides to come for a visit, we better be all we can be to light up her world. From the way, our website looks to the specific graphics that she saw in our ads, to the thought bubbles that say things Sam said in her socials. Sam needs to know us as well as we know Sam because, after all, we’re besties.
It’s not good enough to just have a website and throw up a blog now and then. We can’t just do a quick keyword search and write whatever about whatever. We need to be passionate about what Sam is passionate about, and we need to express that in our copy. Our blogs need to resonate, and our graphics need to inspire. It’s Sam’s seal of approval, her affirmation that we’re after, and when we earn the cred, Sam becomes our customer.
Not a writer or a graphic designer or know anything about pay-per-click, landing pages, drip copy, conversion rates, and other marketing methods? That's ok. You do the research and profile your Sam as best as you can. It’s free to friend someone. Then invest in hiring a reputable marketing company like Empower Me Marketing to build one single campaign. After all, you aren’t targeting an audience, just Sam. Your Sam.
REPEAT THE PROCESS
After Sam becomes our customer and tells all her friends, we need to measure the success. We can’t manage what we can’t measure, and it’s essential to learn what our Return On Investment (ROI) is. That helps us decide if we keep pushing the Sam campaign or run another. Can we do multiples? Of course. The sky is the limit, and we can have as many websites and landing pages and ads and campaigns as we want so long as we know whom to target and how to compel their click.
It’s a law of compounding interest. The deeper our analysis of our Prospect Persona, the better our success rate will transform them from a viewer to a doer. Word of mouth advertising connects us to their entire social sphere, and then theirs, and so on. If we can get one dialed in, just right – the rest will be to wash, rinse and repeat the process.
BONUS: TRACK YOUR NUMBERS
Keeping track of the 1-3 specific strategies you use to get Sam to your landing page and offer is as important as when she clicks and schedules that call or buys that hot item in your shop. Knowing your marketing and client acquisition is the initial information that you need to understand client acquisition costs. Knowing the value of a customer who continues to buy from you may affect the numbers, so this is what we are after in the long run. A topic for another post…
For now, identifying Sam and knowing her thoroughly is the best way to start your online marketing efforts. Happy hunting!
