Digital Marketing Essentials 102: Know Your Audience

Digital Marketing Agency Thailand Essentials: 102 Know Your Audience

In lesson 101 we discussed the paramount importance of good branding to online marketing in Thailand.

Now it’s time to get up close and personal with your audience. Time to discover who they are, their hopes and dreams, and their deepest frustrations.

But before we dig in, why does knowing your audience matter?

If you come from the world of laboriously earning leads through cold calls and networking, you may still think, “I’ll just meet and call as many people as I can, and the leads will roll in.”

While it’s true, this “spray and pray” method of marketing can work, is it really the most effective use of your time and resources?

Lasers Vs. Cannonballs

While many of us at Lexicon have used “spray and pray” tactics in our previous employment, experience has taught us a smarter way to gain new clients. A way that requires more careful planning, but is guaranteed to save time, money and frustration in the long run. A way that ends the need to waste endless hours cold calling and attending networking events.

Of course, you may have heard of this method before. It’s called precision audience targeting.

In fact, you’ve probably done some targeting yourself.

Ever chosen one networking event over another?

Attended a Bangkok Chamber dinner rather than a meetup.com event?

If you’ve made this kind of choice because you knew which event your target clients would be attending, then you’ve already done some work in understanding your audience.

Now, let’s just take that same idea of audience understanding to the digital world, where its importance is paramount. Without it, your digital marketing campaign could waste hundreds of thousands of baht and see little-to-no result. The reason?

Digital content lacks the human touch innate in cold calls and networking. It’s more difficult to make a personal connection, and people can easily ignore your online content. This is why it’s even more important to create impressive digital content that’s designed not only to present your brand in the best possible light, but also to engage with your ideal customers. But to do that, you need to have a clear idea of who your target clients are, as well as what interests and frustrates them.

You need to swap the cannonball for the sniper rifle. Only then can you make a meaningful connection. And that all starts with the following…

Defining your audience: a 3 step process

People go online to be educated, entertained and informed.

Before you can start connecting with new clients through online marketing, you need to understand who your audience is and what they’re looking for online.

With this knowledge, you can start to create content that drives engagement, builds trust and eventually transforms casual browsers into loyal customers.

But how do you do that?

First, you need to build a persona profile of your target audience. You can do that by defining your audience in these 3 ways:

Demographics – Is your target client male or female? How old are they? Where do they live? Maybe the answer isn’t so straightforward. Maybe you can segment your audience into three, four or seventeen different groups. For example, if you’re a professional services firm, it could be that 50% of your clients are 30 – 40 year old Thai men running businesses in Asoke; 40% are expat CEOs over 60 who work in Bangkok’s CBD between 9 and 5; and the last 10% are middle managers and business owners in Nonthaburi. Your targeting should address all three groups separately.
Psychographics – What do your customers enjoy? What are their interests? Do they shop at Big C or Paragon? Do they read the Guardian or the Bangkok post? Are their heroes Buakaw Banchamek or Tim Ferris? Once you know your audience’s interests, you’re able to create content that really resonates. This psychographic information can also be used to drill down further with your target advertising.
Questions and concerns – What common questions do your potential customers ask? What concerns do they frequently cite? You customers may continually email you the same questions over and over again. For example, if you’re a tax firm, you may regularly be asked, “What documents do I need to complete my taxes?” Creating content that addresses these frequent questions will help your potential clients. Helpfulness transforms you from a business to a friendly advisor. Helpfulness builds trust.

By defining your customers in these three ways, you can create content that connects with your audience, leading to increased engagement, followers and ultimately sales. You won’t waste money advertising or creating content that doesn’t convert. And best of all, the work you do upfront to understand your client can be used again and again for years to come.

So are you ready to lock and load your marketing sniper rifle, hone in on your target and fire a campaign? Hold on just a minute.

Before doing that, you need to load your sniper with mouthwatering content. How do you do that? And how can content be used to cause a business growth explosion? Stay tuned. We’ll be covering just that topic in article 3 of our digital marketing essentials series.

Lexicon is a full-service digital marketing agency in Bangkok, Thailand. We produce all of our content in-house, including branding, copywriting, video production and graphic design. Lexicon’s social media marketing services start from just 10,000 THB per month.