13/06/2017
Let’s talk Election. With the votes counted, a new government being formed and campaign posters now lining every landfill, we have some time to reflect on why the Conservatives didn’t get the landslide majority predicted by the polls in April.
One interesting statistic to note is that the percentage of younger people voting was higher than ever this year. Hot off the heels of Brexit, it seems many were keen to make their voice heard with the turnout of youth voters being as high as 72% and estimates suggesting that 66% chose to vote Labour. Why?
It seems that Labour’s decision to focus on marketing towards the younger generation through platforms such as Twitter and Instagram was a gamble that payed off, tapping into a resource of voters not swayed by the efforts of the other parties.
The lesson businesses can take from this? How important targeted marketing can be.
When it comes to your business, think about who exactly your target demographic is and consider ways of using targeted marketing specifically for them. In the broadest sense, you should already be utilising social media and SEO to get you as widely recognised as possible, but if you aren’t at least partially targeting some of your materials, your advertising may fall on deaf ears.
First you should build a persona of your average customer. Your target audience shouldn’t be everyone, or even everyone who uses social media. Ironically, throwing your wonderfully crafted marketing messages out to such a broad range of people won’t actually reach that many.
If you aren’t sure of who your demographic is specifically, the best people to ask are your existing customers. Try surveying them to see who is most popular with your business and work from there.
There are many ways to target your marketing, but one of the easiest ways is through your social media. Odds are your business is already active on Facebook, but have you considered the benefits of using other platforms? LinkedIn? Google+? Instagram? Depending on your business, other social media sites can be incredibly useful in directing more traffic your way.
While those of every age do use these sites, they are more popular amongst certain demographics: Most people use Facebook, but Twitter’s general audience is younger and Instagram even younger than that. As with anything marketing related, research is your best friend, and checking the engagement your posts are getting is simple.
If you have a business account with any of these sites, then you can usually check the engagement that your posts are getting and how many people they’re reaching, so next time you can tailor your content to reach the most people. Analytics are there for a reason.
On many sites, you can also promote your posts for more engagement. Let’s use Facebook as an example. With a business account, you can boost a post for a certain amount of time to get it seen by more people, and tailor it to a certain demographic, which can help drive more traffic to your site in the long run.
If targeted marketing and social media is still giving you a headache, then have a chat to our Marketing team to see how we can help! Also, make sure to check out our Facebook page for more helpful insights.
