Identifying Your Target Market and Educating Them

We’ve been talking a little bit about really looking at your overall digital marketing strategy. This is something that we help our clients throughout the year. Because as we start a new year, we always look at, “Okay, what do we need to adjust for this year, what are our goals, what do we want to do?”

We usually have those quarterly goals, and now we’re entering in the second part of 2020 and it’s time to reflect on what’s working, what’s not working, and what we need to do for the remaining part of the year, but then also projecting into the new year.

I know it seems a little crazy to already be thinking about 2021, but things change, and so today we’ll talk about your target market and how to educate them.

What do those posts look like? How does building that relationship works with your target market? So a few things that I want you to do is just take a quick minute to reflect on your social media footprint, so to speak.

So what have your social media struggles been? What goals have you set for your social media strategy or that you want to set moving forward? And what social media platforms are you currently using, and which ones would you like to start using? So think of which ones are you using.

Re-evaluate the platforms you’re using

Think of which ones do you think that your target market is using. If you’re spending a lot of time on Twitter, for instance, and you’re not getting a lot of followers and you’re not getting a lot of engagement. But when you post on to Instagram or Facebook, you’re getting a lot more engagement. That may mean you need to re-evaluate the platforms you’re using.

Just because they’re out there doesn’t mean you need to be on all of them. Sometimes Twitter or Instagram works great for some of our clients, and other times they don’t. So it’s really thinking of where your audience is.

Survey your audience

One good way of doing this is sending out a survey, putting together a survey for your email list. “What platforms do you use the most? What times of day are you on those platforms?”

Really wanting to get that feedback from your audience so you can understand where they’re spending their time as well. And then going more into, “Do you have that target market clearly defined?”

Identify a niche you want to target

Sometimes we ask a business, “What’s your ideal client?” And they’ll say, “Oh, anyone, I work with everyone”.

Well, over the past 12 years of us being in business, we’ve learned that we don’t want to work with everyone. We have a clear niche of people that we want to work with.

If you are a healthcare practitioner, then you have a little bit more of a clear niche if you are an OBGYN, if you’re a family practitioner, if you are an orthopedic surgeon. It’s easier to define that target market because your service is already niched. If you are a realtor or even a massage therapist, a chiropractor, you’ll want to think more about the type of person you want to work with.

Questions to help you define your target audience

  • Do you know who they are?
  • Do you know how to find them and where to find them?
  • Are they using social media?
  • Where and how can you find them?
  • Do their core values align with yours?

And this is something that we’ve talked about in the past that’s really important to us as a company, is defining those core values and making sure that the people you’re working with aligning with that.

Tailor your content for your target audience

Are you engaging with your target market? Are you putting together content that is speaking to them?

If your audience is mostly families with younger kids and you’re putting content up about retirement or AARP, that’s a disconnect of your audience and your content messaging.

If you are a family practitioner, maybe your patients are more 55-plus, and you’re putting out kid activities and healthy kids snacks, you’re missing that connection with your audience.

So really identifying who are your clients or customers now, which ones have you really enjoyed working with and you have that relationship with, and then identifying why. Why do you like working with them? How do you get more clients or customers like them? So that’s really figuring out your target market, and then now that you’ve identified kind of looking at your social media footprint, you’ve looked at your target market.

Set SMART goals

Now let’s set some goals. And so it’s important to think of those smart goals for social media.

Specific. Your goal should be very clear, simple, and defined. Something along the lines of, “We want to grow our Facebook page to reach 3000 likes this year”.

Measurable. So how can you track these goals? Do you have a system in place with your email marketing that you can track how many emails you’ve gotten or how many likes? What are those analytics that are in place for you to be able to measure your results?

Achievable. Going into achievable, so this is kind of like what I said with being specific, make sure you’re setting goals that you can reach it.

If you have 100 likes and you want to get 10 million, that may not happen in a year but setting something simple, “We want to get to 2000. We want to have a thousand  sign-ups from our paid efforts on social media this year.”

If you have 100 likes and you want to get 10 million, that may not happen in a year but setting something simple, “We want to get to 2000. We want to have a thousand  sign-ups from our paid efforts on social media this year.”

Realistic.  So again, if your goal is to reach a million likes on your Facebook page but you only have 146 to start with, that may not be achievable within the next six months or next year. But how can we bring it into, “Okay, I wanna reach 2000 likes, I wanna reach 5000 likes.” And if that’s your number, then put in place that realistic of, “How am I gonna do that? What does it mean for me to reach that goal?”

Time-sensitive. If you say, “Oh, I want a million likes”, well, maybe over the course of 10 years or five years or three years that can happen. But, “This is my goal for the next six months. This is what I want to do, this is how I really wanna build those relationships with my target market to make sure that I am speaking to them.” And that leads me into the next piece, of Educate.

Educate your audience

So now that you identified your target market, you know who they are, you know what their interests are, you know their lifestyle, and they’re already, hopefully, seeing you or doing business with you, and so now it’s really important to educate them.

I love social media brands, whether they are a local business, a big brand, but they tell a story. And they highlight their customers.

The American Diabetes Association and the American Heart Association do an amazing job with their social media campaigns. They are constantly highlighting stories of people that are struggling with diabetes, how they’ve overcome it, how their families overcome it. They’re always putting in place different resources and tools for their audience. And their audience, they have a mix of kids with Type 1 diabetes to adults with Type 2 diabetes, and their marketing is very clear. They’re educating each niche of their target market, they’re speaking to them on their level.

If you are a family practice or a massage therapist or a chiropractor, your clientele may vary in age and interest. So then it’s really figuring out, “What does that content look like? How can you take the time to educate each of them?” And this can be telling stories.

Tell your brand story

This is a great way to see that brand personality behind your business. I want to learn about who you are as a business owner, who your team is, where they come from, what are you guys passionate about.

Sharing stories on a personal level about the business, but then also having your patients share their stories. So when they started to come to see you, maybe they had a really tight cramp in their back and it was really hard for them to sleep. You know, over the course of three months of getting a massage or whatever that time frame is, they were able to feel normal again, and they were back to their old self and being able to play with their kids and go on their morning runs or whatever that story is.

People really resonate with stories. I don’t care what industry you’re in, stories are really important. And they’re educational because people want to say, “They’re like me. They have that issue too, I’m not alone.”

And so the storytelling piece is a very important piece of your marketing, and if you can take it a step further and do some videos around that storytelling if you can have your client or your patient do a video testimonial or story. And then as you do your stories for your side, use those, do videos, interview one of your staff members or your nurses or your doctors. Really have that brand personality there.

Build your network

Make sure that you are building your network. So now that you know your target market, you’re speaking their language. Look at who’s liking your posts and start to educate them and reach out to them. So, people that are liking your post, you can go and invite them to like your page.

In our next vlog, we’re gonna be talking about doing some more, like boosting posts and Facebook ads, and so this is another way you can increase your networks by utilizing boosted posts and ads to reach your target market. So right now you may be going into different Facebook groups or looking on Instagram for certain hashtags.

If you are in a certain city, you want to look for people that are in your area. Start following them. Really work on building that network of your target market on the platforms you’re using. And that is a really important piece because you wanna make sure that once you get your people in that you keep them and you’re staying top of mind with them.

Final thoughts

So those are just a few components of your overall digital marketing strategy. Our next vlogs, as I said, will be around how can you implement email marketing and content upgrades and boosted posts into your digital marketing strategy.

If you need help creating this strategy, if you need help with identifying your target market and really being clear on what your social media strategy should look like, we are here to help you.

Head on over to socialspeaknetwork.com and schedule a free 30-minute consultation. We look forward to working with you. Have a great day.

Identifying Your Target Market and Educating Them

Identifying Your Target Market and Educating ThemIdentifying Your Target Market and Educating Them