4Ps: Zooming In On Who You Target Online

How to target the right audience for my product? When it comes down to traditional marketing, the textbook way of using 4Ps (Product, Price, Place and Promotion) is the usual go-to. But based on our research, we have found that the same approach can be applied to help you get insights on how you can target your audience on digital.

Businesses, for a start, tend to jump on multiple digital platforms almost immediately. The common misconception is that their content will then have a wider reach; because more is more, right? Unfortunately, that is not always the case.

More often than not, businesses usually target their customers through common factors, like age, gender, and location. Though it helps to filter the general customer, the targeted parameters are still too broad. So whether you’re thinking of reaching out to an audience for sales or to build a following, the 4Ps enables you to define your targeting plan, laying out a clearer strategy on who you can outreach to.

With that, you will also be able to understand better what your customer needs and have a better idea of how to align your brand to your consumers’ values. Because with all the constant adjustments in algorithm and rules on social media, knowing what your brand means to the customers and its brand voice is essential. While it is tempting to want to include everyone, the life quote that goes, “you can’t please everybody” applies here. Being specific is what you are looking for.

PRODUCT

On digital, understanding the kind of product that your customers want or the related products that they might be interested in, is essential. With the abundance of data points that help you to understand your customers, you will be able to find out interesting insights about them.

How, you asked? Start looking at your website and the existing customers for clues. If you are an e-commerce company, dive into the related products your customers are buying. For example, if the customer had just purchased a mobile phone, they would most likely purchase a phone cover. Hence, if you are a phone cover seller, you might want to start targeting people who have just purchased a mobile phone over the past month.

If you are a service company, find out what other services that your customers would consider. Using personalization engines like Shopify and other eCommerce solution, this should be easy for you to find out. Check out this guide to find out how to use Facebook Pixel to target your audience who have similar interest with related products.

You can also get more clues on social media. Without even diving into privacy issues, you can easily find out what your potential customers may like in terms of movies or books. For example, Wordstream showed this example where they targeted “people on Facebook who buy Business Marketing Services” since Wordstream sells business software and services.

PRICE

Are you sending ads to people who may not be able to afford your product? You want to make sure that your product is sent to the right group of customers, who would be able to make that purchasing decision. Certainly, you don’t want to send another mobile phone ad to someone who has just made a recent iPhone purchase?

Find out what your targeted customers’ purchasing power so that you can target the right people with the right income level. With the recent changes to the privacy policy of all social media platforms, it may be difficult to find out the purchasing behaviour of your customers.

Unless you are targeting specifically US customers, the ability to do income level targeting becomes quite limited outside US. 

Fortunately, you can use a combination of data points to achieve this level of targeting. Using your demographics data from your Google Analytics or Facebook pixel, you might be able to find out the various occupations of your customers. That would give you an estimated indication of the purchasing power of your customers, given that the dataset of the estimated salary of various occupations is usually published openly.

PLACE

Are you sending the right ads to your audience where they are? Imagine you are working in the sales department of a property company, you would definitely want to avoid Instagram or Snapchat as your choice of advertising platform.

The demographics for each social media platform differ, with its slightly unique user experience. Your customers will have their personal preferences in terms of which platform they visit.

Looking at the Singapore statistics, YouTube currently has the highest engagement among youths, followed by Facebook and Instagram. Depending on the insights of your consumers, the platform of choice should cater to the targeted audience for the best reach when executing a promotion. If you are considering reaching out to millennials in Singapore, you would definitely want to consider your targeting campaign on YouTube first.

Unless you have someone like Beyoncé officially fronting your content, chances are it will not “fly” on its own. Give your quality content the limelight it deserves. Given the recent changes in social media platforms, you can’t avoid putting money to your post if you want to create the awareness.

PROMOTION

Besides understanding your customers’ purchasing power, their usual “hangout” platform on social media or related products that they buy, you definitely need to be able to speak your customers’ language.

Digital tools such as social media listening tool gives you a clear indication on what your customers usually talk about. It gives you a glimpse into what your customers might like to see when searching for similar products like yours.

Take River Hongbao 2019 for example: While organizing the event, we were acutely aware that our customers are very pleased with the fireworks festival. We took the opportunity to continue riding on the hype by sharing more of such posts to new audiences. This, in turn, generated more interest and attracted more customers walking through the event gates.

TARGET THE RIGHT AUDIENCE TODAY

Knowing who your business targets is essential in developing a strategic online marketing plan. Whether it is getting sales or increasing following, this 4Ps model enables you to cater to the needs of your customers more specifically and helping you to understand how to set up your targeting parameters for your next advertising campaign.

Use your creativity when finding data that fits your business’ needs, especially when faced with limitations like the example provided above on income level targeting not applicable to those outside the US.

Ultimately, there are no hard and fast rules; but knowing the values that your business represents, and what your targeted customers are looking for, helps in flourishing your business.

If you have any comments or would just like to chat on how we help our customers to achieve better sales in targeting the right audience on digital platforms, do drop us a note at talktous@wearebeknown.com or leave us a contact at the contact form here.

[by Badriah Arsad, Digital Marketer]

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