How to Develop an Audience First Marketing Strategy for Your Business

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Today's marketer has no guarantee of reaching their audience on any medium. Not Facebook. Not Instagram. Not LinkedIn. Not Twitter.  Not YouTube. Not Snapchat.

Organic reach is dwindling to zero for brands and marketers who don't have a solid marketing strategy that encompasses social, digital, content, and measurement all centered around their target audience.

Even when you place a simple ad on Facebook, the first question Facebook will ask you is, “who do you want to target?”  If you don't know your target audience, your ad is not only unlikely to reach your ideal customer, but it's going to cost you a lot more in wasted media spend.

The truth is, without an audience first marketing approach, every aspect of marketing is going to cost more time and money.

Social currency on the web today = attention + action. 

It is impossible to gain the attention of and drive your target customer to the desired action if you don't know who your target customer is.

Many marketers fear taking an audience first marketing approach as they falsely believe it's more costly, complicated and will slow them down. When done right it can actually turbo charge your results.

Audience First Marketing is a Requirement Not an Option

The truth is that an audience first marketing strategy will help align every aspect of your social, digital, content and media spend to the needs of your audience and the goals of your business.  An audience first marketing strategy you invest in researching, understanding, segmenting, and targeting your audience before you do anything else.

The good news is that the social networks and broader social ecosystem provides us with incredible ways to dig deep into not only the demographics, geographics but also the psychographics of their audience and potential audience.

Although many marketers claim to know their audience, the truth is many are not doing much more than throwing social content and media spaghetti at the wall hoping it sticks.

Any organization that wants to still be in business 5 years from now needs to take the time to research and know their audience so that they can properly segment, target and implement an audience first marketing approach.

I developed a 2 part podcast series that puts audience marketing in a nutshell to help you understand how you leverage an audience first social media, digital marketing and branding strategy that helps you attract your ideal customer and achieve your goals.

Take a listen to episode 236 and 237 of the Social Zoom Factor podcast to learn the foundations of developing an audience based marketing approach for your business. These episodes will help you if you are a newbie to audience marketing or need to freshen up your skills.

Listen to both episodes and subscribe to the entire series -> iTunes, Stitcher or SoundCloud!

In this 2 part podcast series you will learn the following:

• The why, what and how of audience marketing in a nutshell?
• Why an audience first marketing strategy is required
• How to define a target audience
• What is audience targeting
• What is audience and market segmentation
• How to segment markets and audiences using demographics, geographics, and psychographics
• Understanding the important role a buyer persona plays in audience marketing and targeting

Need more help? Social Profit Factor Training Academy and Marketing Nutz Can Help! 

Check out our new comprehensive online social media and branding training academy, the Social Profit Factor, that will help with you develop your audience based social media, branding and digital marketing strategy and plan. Sign up now to become a founding member and receive some incredible deals plus bonus offers.

Need help training your sales team or marketing team on the power of audience marketing, social media or social selling?  Give us a shout and let's get a custom workshop schedule for your team. Increase sales by generating more leads using social media to nurture relationships.

Supporting Resources:

• Know Your Audience! Audience Analysis Worksheet
• You Are the Media: 10 Reasons You Need a Blog (episode 111)
• 10 Tips to Focus on Needs of Your Customer
• Social Trust Factor – How to Earn Trust and Establish Authority Online
• 8 Steps to Develop a Social Business Plan (white paper)

How to Subscribe to Social Zoom Factor Podcast 

•  iTunes
• Stitcher
• SoundCloud