Marketing targeting: from definition to method
Along with upstream segmentation and downstream positioning, marketing targeting is at the heart of any marketing management strategy, whether B2B or B2C.
How do you know which target prospects and customers to address? What criteria should be used to determine the best strategy for reaching your core target? How do you define your marketing target?
Good segmentation and clear marketing targeting are essential for successful prospecting and guaranteeing an effective lead generation process, and are real weapons for massive conversion.
Find out more in this article co-written by Anthony Rochand, consultant, trainer andco-founder of LEW.
What is marketing targeting?
Marketing targeting is a technique that involves selecting one market segment rather than another on which to focus communication and marketing efforts.
Following on from the segmentation stage, it makes it possible to target one or more categories of customers, prospects, influencers, distributors or investors very precisely, in order to boost marketing effectiveness.
When the targeted segment corresponds to your ideal customer, we speak of your core target.
💡 Marketing targeting therefore involves :
- selecting the segments that have the greatest affinity with your product or service;
- identifying the expectations of the targets that your offer can meet,
- personalising your interactions with your core target.
Targeting criteria in marketing
It would actually be more accurate to talk about segmentation criteria rather than targeting criteria. In fact, the choice of criteria enables a given population to be broken down into homogeneous segments (segmentation stage), whereas the targeting stage consists of choosing a segment.
To help you in this task, an all-in-one prospecting solution can be of invaluable assistance. Easybusiness, for example, uses its B2B database to target companies with high potential for your customer acquisition and engagement operations.
It offers 60 criteria for identifying your targets and new prospecting markets, as well as an assessment of your business potential by geographical sector.
Once you have identified and qualified your targets, you can also use software such as lead with IP tracking technology.
This enables you to identify them when they visit your site anonymously, observe their browsing behaviour to categorise them, refine your target and even detect new audiences whose potential you may not have realised.
Types of targeting in marketing
What are the different types of targeting?
- Behavioural targeting. This is based on data gathered about the behaviour of visitors who browse your website or interact with advertisements:
- the pages visited
- click-through rates,
- the average length of a visit,
- the origin of the traffic,
- behaviour, etc.
In particular, Webmecanik offers a behavioural targeting functionality that complies with the RGPD.
By analysing a range of data, you can gain a better understanding of your prospects and customers, and automatically trigger personalised marketing and communication actions.
The many features of this French marketing automation software, based on Mautic technology, enable you to analyse and track your visitors, to generate qualified leads and convert them.
- Retargeting. Thanks to the cookies on your site, you can track your visitors once they've left, and automatically offer them advertising on other sites based on what they've visited.
These two digital marketing targeting techniques are particularly effective for online campaigns.
- Segment targeting. This consists of choosing a segment (sometimes several) on which to focus your marketing efforts, adapting the message in a personalised way.
Examples of marketing targets
Looking for an example of a marketing target to help you define your own? Here are a few ideas to help you think about it:
- Example no. 1: you offer room hire → find out which companies need to organise an event in the medium term and where ;
- Example 2: you are a web agency → you could target companies that are in the process of raising funds and offer to redesign their website;
- Example 3: you sell human resources management software → target HR managers in companies with more than 15 employees;
- Example 4: you sell childcare products → target women aged between 25 and 35, etc.
Marketing targeting and its advantages
- 💸 stop wasting time and money on low-potential segments, where your offer is unsuitable or too competitive;
- 🌟 attract more qualified prospects thanks to personalised marketing and communication actions;
- 🤓 become more relevant and effective by tailoring your approach to each identified segment;
- 🤝 detect new business opportunities and consumer trends by regularly reviewing your targeting ;
- 🎁 adapt your offer to always better meet the needs of your target.
Segmentation, targeting, positioning: the winning trio
What's the difference between segmentation and targeting?
Segmentation is the stage prior to marketing targeting, a pre-selection of sorts. It involves identifying homogeneous subsets or segments of the population.
This method makes it possible to obtain a precise, qualified profile by category of person, so that you can better group together their behaviours and interests, and obtain a clear vision of your potential audiences.
The marketing positioning strategy
What about marketing positioning? This is the last stage after segmentation and marketing targeting. You have divided the market into segments to define the prospects to whom you should address your offer, and then you have chosen one or more target segments that are potentially interested and accessible.
All that remains is to position your offer, particularly in terms of price or range, to set yourself apart from the competition.
How do you define a marketing target in 5 steps?
Step 1: Get to know your offer
The first step in getting to know your target is to fully understand your product or service offering.
Digging deeper into your offer can provide you with some interesting insights, such as :
- the type of target (B2B or B2C),
- the problems your offer can solve
- who can benefit from it
- how the product is positioned in relation to the competition,
- who is prepared to buy it, etc.
Step 2: Collect and use customer data
The quality of the segmentation and targeting will depend on the diversity and relevance of the data, but that's not all!
Just as important is your ability to make intelligent use of it and to get the information to speak for itself.
The more data you have, the more you can adapt your communication, whether in terms of the channel used, the tone chosen or the type of content to offer.
Hubspot's Hub Marketing is a unified platform that includes all the tools you need to do Inbound Marketing effectively.
Automatically collect and centralise all kinds of data on your prospects (pages viewed, interactions on social networks, content downloaded) and create segments in just a few clicks.
You'll then be able to offer them personalised content in a targeted way, and automatically trigger the sending of emails when an action is taken.
Step 3: Audience segmentation
How do you find the most relevant target? Start by segmenting your audience using :
- socio-demographic criteria (gender, age, SPC),
- geographical criteria (home, workplace),
- psychographic criteria (buying habits, interests), etc.
For your BtoB prospecting and lead generation strategy, you can use more specific characteristics such as :
- criteria based on a company profile (type of company, turnover, workforce, investments, projects, news),
- criteria based on a decision-maker profile (training and level of qualification, career path, development within the company, current events).
🤓 A few tips on how to create a relevant segmentation:
- don't use all the criteria to create your segments;
- the profiles of each segment should be as homogenous as possible ;
- each segment must be clearly differentiated from the others ;
- they must be measurable, exploitable (reasonable competition, few obstacles) and offer identified prospects for growth and sales.
Step 4: Choose your targeting strategy
There are a number of elements to take into account when choosing your strategy, from researching your target to your current position in the market, and the possible adaptation of your offer or message in line with your objectives.
Here are the three main targeting strategies, which can be selected or combined, varying the marketing mix and the size of the audience to be reached:
- mass marketing: a single marketing mix for a very broad, unqualified target ;
- differentiated marketing: at least two different marketing mixes are proposed, to reach two different target segments, known as differentiated targeting;
- concentration marketing, including :
- Niche marketing (very small segment, but homogenous in its expectations),
- customisation marketing (very demanding targets requiring a high degree of personalisation).
Step 5: Define your marketing persona
Defining a marketing persona involves creating a detailed fictional portrait of your ideal customer, based on the information you have available. Personalising your core target as much as possible makes it easier to personalise your message.
Looking for inspiration? Use our persona marketing template! Download our freepersona marketingtemplate:
Here are the criteria that are generally included
- surname, first name, age
- family and professional situation,
- expectations, problems encountered, obstacles,
- interests, hobbies, passions,
- preferred channels of communication and purchase,
- any barriers to purchase, etc.
Target, reach, refine... do it again!
Are your first campaigns starting to bear fruit? Good, because that means you're on the right track and you' ve managed to reach your targets and convert a few prospects into customers.
Now, if you want to continue developing your business, you need to continue gathering and analysing information to enrich your database and get to know your core target even better.
This will enable you to respond to their needs (and even anticipate them), and maximise their satisfaction to turn them into loyal customers.
And what about you? What are your marketing targeting tips?