When it comes to managing a business, the marketing strategy you embrace is crucial. A lot of organizations have over the years moved from mass marketing to targeted marketing. An organization can adopt any of the two based on its products and business model.
As a startup, adopting target marketing will be more effective. That’s considering that some of the top organizations in the world use targeted marketing approaches. But let’s first define the two types of marketing. What is targeted marketing and what is mass marketing?
Targeted marketing approach attempts to reach a specifically defined audience. Mass marketing, however, can be used to reach as many people as possible. These two approaches are both effective routes to marketing and can drive leads and sales for an organization.
Why Target Marketing?
Note that startups usually encounter challenges in getting the right audience. One of the causes of such challenges is insufficient funds to reach a wide range of audiences. That’s where target marketing comes in.
It enables startups to segment their audience into demographics. They then focus on only those interested in their products by age, sex, income, or educational qualifications.
It’s always best for startups to narrow their focus. That’s because the strategy enables them to save money and build a stronger business reputation. It also helps in planning an effective strategy to reach the target market. It makes the business more profitable and builds a loyal client-base.
Target marketing allows organizations to speak directly to their clients. This is often executed by knowing more about the target market. You find out what their needs are, their wants, and fears, then tailor your marketing to directly speak to the audience.
It’s said that in 2021, the worldwide digital advertising spending went up to £455.3. This figure is expected to steadily increase to £646 billion by 2024. With this projection, its no wonder that new forms of online targeted marketing are popping up.
There’s social media advertising, email marketing, affiliate marketing, and most notably, performance marketing. A mix of brand marketing, paid ads services, and performance marketing.
Performance marketing refers to advertising programs in which the ad money is spent only when the required action is completed.
Such actions can be a completed lead, sale, booking, or download. This win-win marketing opportunity for retailers and affiliates enables stakeholders to target campaigns in a strategic and high ROI manner based on performance.
By paying affiliates after an action is completed, a merchant can feel confident that their money is well spent. That’s considering that they are already converting their audience before they pay for a transaction.
Benefits of Target Marketing
There are many ways through which target marketing can help an organization grow. They are:
- It is a Cost-Effective Approach. Target marketing means that you’ll be targeting a smaller group of consumers. But it also means that you’ll be excluding the people that are less likely to convert into clients. These are consumers who don’t need your products or services. As a result, you’ll get more value for your buck since you know that every dollar that’s spent targets the right people.
- Promoting Effective Advertising. It’s important to note that target marketing is data-driven. You simply look at your client’s purchase behavior, their demographic, and preferences. These data will help you with the creation of a marketing strategy that appeals to the audience.
- Personalized Content. Personalization is considered to be the future of B2C marketing. The best way for organizations to engage clients is to create intelligent and personalized content. The use of cloud-based systems helps marketers to deliver targeted campaigns.
You can, for instance, send marketing emails to targeted clients that are celebrating a milestone in their lives. These clients may have signed up to your list to receive product updates.
- Building Relationships with Clients. Targeted marketing makes it easy for organizations to build long-term relationships with clients. Having the ability to create marketing content that caters to specific clients is important. That’s because it ensures that you keep clients engaged with your brand.
- Measurable Results. Different marketing teams have different goals and as such, their campaigns must match the expected results. Your marketing, for instance, may be targeted at:
- Thanking loyal clients
- Generating more leads
- Raising brand awareness
- Promoting a new product
If you market with your target group in mind, you’ll be able to align your marketing efforts to your clients efficiently. Audience targeting is more effective for organizations that use online marketing methoda like performance advertising. That’s because measuring clicks isn’t enough in providing accurate insights into campaign effectiveness.
Mass Marketing at a Glance
Mass marketing is considered expensive. Thus, your marketing messages must be in the most basic form. This will help to ensure that you have a broader appeal. Remember that we are in the digital age and people want to be spoken to on a personal level. Thus, a blanket mass marketing campaign can prove to be expensive if not well executed.
Mass marketing can also be compared to casting a wide net into the ocean. This means that you aim to catch a lot of fish and so you’ll need a bigger net. You’ll also need a bigger boat and many hands to help you out. Remember that this kind of marketing is open to all. So you’ll catch all kinds of fishes.
This kind of marketing focuses on low price and high volume which narrows the profit margin. The marketing channels in mass marketing are the traditional marketing channels. These include radio, television, and low prices to drive high sales. They also focus on volumes and numbers.
Benefits of Mass Marketing
Below are some marketing benefits that come with mass marketing. They can affect an organization directly or indirectly.
- Cost Efficiency. Mass marketing doesn’t put a financial load on organizations. Even startups use this kind of marketing approach to deliver products to potential clients.
That’s because you don’t have to spend resources on contacting consumers since the details of the products are conveyed through print media, social media, or broadcasting channels to reach audiences.
- Large Audiences. Many organizations target a large number of consumers when selling products. This approach is good as it enables you to reach millions of people. Giving people what they want means definite product details. It helps to reinforce the product’s image in the mind of potential clients. This helps to increase the number of potential clients in demand of your products.
- High Sales. As the demand for your products rises up, it also means that there will be an increase in production. This means that there will be a boost in sales making you enjoy volumes of profits.
- Brand Building. Selling your product at a huge scale does not only generate a high profit. It also helps to increase the awareness of your products and brand. Brand building gives you consistency over a long time thanks to mass marketing.
- Building Trust. After developing your brand, trust-building comes next to give you an edge over the competition. If a client gets satisfied with your product, they are less likely to prefer a similar product from another organization. That’s because they are getting the best quality from you.
Conclusion
You now understand that mass marketing is effective in getting your products to the right audience. It is, however, not the best approach for startups. That’s due to the fact that it requires a lot of resources, manpower, and funding.
On the other hand, target marketing provides an efficient way of reaching the target audience in a reliable and effective way. It also provides a level ground for startups to compete with big corporations without needing a huge budget.
