Strategies to Segment Audiences and Personalize Digital Marketing

Today’s consumers are not silent spectators or passive listeners. Instead, companies are dealing with an empowered audience — engaged in real-time social and mobile conversations, but fragmented across many digital platforms.

While digital marketers are well aware that they must segment their audience and deliver the right message to the right audience at the right time, many struggles with tactical yet effective ways to pinpoint audiences based on needs, expectations and behaviors.

Use Digital Platforms to Build Consumer Personas

• Customers are more than just a gender, age, and location recorded in this database. Marketers need to understand the behaviors and preferences of customers to offer them with the best possible experiences while simultaneously influencing their purchasing plans.
• Persona building is a great way to avoid pitching irrelevant marketing content to consumers. For instance, travelers interested in yoga, meditation and soulful retreats most likely are not interested in VIP club access or weekend party yacht rentals. Be more targeted will make sure the content resonates with customers.
  Integrate unique experiences for real-time consumer journey insight
  • Forrester’s report on Competitive Strategy in the Age of the Consumeremphasizes going beyond consumer historical data and expanding analysis to better understand “the next step a consumer may take.” Customers come into contact with brands at varying stages; some are ready to purchase, others are there to gather information, and it’s up to brands to offer experiences that cater to each specific situation, and move the consumer closer to conversion.
  • Brand-to-consumer experiences help brands gain a real-time understanding of where an individual is in the buying cycle, and how the brand can move them along the path to purchase.
  • Be generous with content and rewards by incorporating contests and discount offerings to consumers, but keep those offerings pertinent to the needs, wants, and desires of each audience segment.

   

  Identify new touch points for audience segments using an Omni-channel approach

  • Different audiences open their doors to brands at varying stages of the sales cycle. By including utility-focused content and engagement tools into strategies, it will find previously unknown avenues to interact with consumers. Track targeted content allows marketers to see when different audiences are activated — a great building point for future campaigns.
  • Audience segmentation has gone real-time. Brands are building consumer profiles that are constantly tracking what you like, what to buy, how to buy it, and millions of other digital interactions on an ongoing basis. But the potential of this power is lost if marketers aren’t tracking, segmenting, and revamping their messaging to match their audience. Send the wrong message to the wrong audience is not only wasted time — it can also harm your relationship with potential customers.