Many factors go into properly targeting your advertisement to potential customers. The problem is that people often cast so wide a net that they waste time, energy, and, most importantly, money on too diffuse an effort. Rather than trying very hard to reach as many people as you can, focus instead on pinpointing the people you’re looking to target and keeping an eye on the scope of your efforts. Too much is just as bad as too little, and can actually be worse as it will tend to be more costly.
The first thing you want to look at is who you are looking for in terms of customers and clients. Not every business is geared to every person. A store that sells high end men’s clothing is wasting their time advertising in women’s magazines or discount websites. Buying radio space to promote your rock band’s new album on an R&B station probably won’t help you. There are outlayers in all cases (a woman might buy a gift for a man in her life, somebody may like a wide variety of musical genres, etc.), but for the most part it’s a poor approach to seeking out customers. We would all like those outlayers, the exceptions to the rules, to become loyal and repeat customers, but that should serve as a bonus to building a successful business supported by the kind of people that are most interested in what you have to offer. It’s always nice to see the middle-aged woman in your laser tag arena, but she won’t make up for the loss of the dozens of 8-12 year old boys that you normally would find in there.
Next, examine how you’re approaching your customer base geographically. If you have a storefront, are you spending your time advertising two or three towns away? Are they close enough that what you have to offer is worth bypassing nearer competitors? How far are you from your nearest competitor? You should be able to examine your business and determine things such as whether the bulk of your customers will come from the immediate area or have to travel a little to get to you. This will depend, for example, on where you are located (nearer to residential areas means more walk-ins) and what you do (businesses that target children will have more success in a smaller area as children walk or ride bikes/scooters/etc. to get there). Make sure that if you’re looking to draw in business to your location that you consider working outward in your advertising and taking advantage of convenience before you start trying to compete with older businesses on terms like price or customer confidence.
If you run an internet-based business, geographical targeting can still be important. Anything involving shipping means that a larger bulk of orders from nearby can save you money. Culture can play a role in advertising and how you present yourself may have more of an effect in one geographical neighborhood over another, meaning that you need to be aware of how to get and keep the attention of the people you want to spend their money on your product or service.
Being aware of how you target customers and why you choose those specific ones can save you time and effort over a long period. The trick is to keep a close eye on who is most interested in what you have to offer and make sure that you change your strategies when that factor changes.
