Knowing your customers

With website design, and any other form of marketing it’s important to know your customer. This seems intuitive, but isn’t always as simple as you’d think.

Getting this right means that you can differentiate yourself from your competitors and start to attract the customers that are most likely to buy from you.

With most industries this is the case, for example Asda and Waitrose both sell groceries but they market to different audiences.

A BMW dealership wouldn’t do very well if they targeted the marketing of their new car to customers with 15 year old Ford Fiestas. Just as BMW would be better to target owners of nearly-new BMWs or Mercedes as they are more likely to upgrade. Looking even deeper in to cars, even within BMW there are different teams selling different models to different audiences, whether they are the standard, electronic/hybrid, or high performance cars.

When I meet new clients and ask who their target audience is, it’s always a relief when I don’t get the answer “everyone”. There may be exceptions where this is true, but usually there is a particular niche that is more accurate.

Finding this niche is imperative if a marketing campaign is successful, and the target audience need to be considered throughout.

The website for the example needs to be written in a language that appeals; whether this is in corporate way or more chatty/friendly approach. The content needs to reflect the audience and make it clear if you’re selling a product or service based on cost or quality. Even the branding and aesthetics of the website should be tailored to the audience.

When it comes to online marketing knowing the audience can save you a lot of money and make your campaigns far more effectiveness. With search engine optimisation (SEO) it enables website owners to ignore keywords that are less likely to result in sales, and with pay per click (PPC) advertising it’s possible to target adverts to people based on their gender, age, location, hobbies and interests.

It’s worth speaking to a professional marketer to ensure that your target customer is exactly who you think it is, and that your whole marketing strategy is aimed at them.

Once this is established it means that not only can you target your marketing, but also you’ll find that you have far less competitors than you first thought.

We are Webbed Feet ^UK, we specialise in effective website design and online marketing.