Target audience - one of the most important parts of marketing for any business’s success. Understanding your target audience completely will help you with marketing decisions and strategies. That’s why this week on the S.O.B. (small owned business) Marketing podcast, Vivian and I are sharing questions you should be asking about your target audience to better understand them.
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Chapters:
0:00 Welcome to the SOB Marketing Podcast
02:21 You are not your target audience
04:01 Basic Demographics
10:29 Pain points & Lifestyle
23:37 What kind of spender are they?
30:07 What platforms are they on?
37:08 Where they go for advice and help
42:37 Who the gatekeeper is in a family
45:44 How informed are they about your industry?
53:04 Should you grow with your audience or stay focused on one stage?
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Chelsea: Hey everyone and welcome to the S.O.B. Marketing podcast. Where we celebrate to S.O.B. you are, and if you haven't figured it out yet - we mean Small Owned Business, we don't mean S.O.B...
Vivian: Listen, we know that as a small business owner you are working hard on the daily to keep your business fully operational while trying to promote it. And while some days it may feel like the business is owning you, if we're being honest with each other I bet you would admit that you wouldn't give up the insanity for anything.
Chelsea: Our commitment here at the S.O.B. Marketing podcast is to give you the real talk, what works when it comes to advertising, marketing, and promoting your business. And then what doesn't really work.
Vivian: And Chelsea and I promise to always keep the conversation real.
*Beginning of Episode*
Chelsea: Okay Vivian, today we are getting personal.
Vivian: I like it. Tell me all your secrets.
Chelsea: Today we're doing questions ask to learn more about your target audience. I feel like we haven't talked about target audience in a while. This is something that I feel like we should revisit and we should remind everyone. I picked today questions that, we've talked about target audience before but I don't think we've done these questions before. So here are extra, even more questions to ask when you want to learn about your target audience.
Vivian: Yeah, I love the conversation. I'm just going to say it right now. I love the conversation we're about to have simply because when I think about marketing and building blocks, this is what creates the foundation to good marketing no matter what you do. So yes, your budget's important, yes, the type of marketing initiatives that you put out there is important. All of that. However, that all gets easier, the decision making in every single one of those scenarios, about every marketing opportunity that comes up gets a whole lot easier when you know your target audience really, really well. At the end of the day, as small business owners, our ultimate goal should be to be able to tap into the people that we're helping the most. The whole reason we built the business.
Chelsea: Absolutely. I do have a marketing hot take.
Vivian: You always do.
Chelsea: I do and today...in my notes I had written I haven't said this in a while. We record about two episodes at a time, or at least we try to. Then I said it in last week's episode. So it hasn't been a while since I've said this.
Vivian: She literally just said it last week.
Chelsea: I literally just said it last week, but you know what? I'm going to say it again. You are not your target audience. You're not your target audience.
Vivian: I just want to, if you struggle with this, if you're like, gosh, why do I have to keep reminding myself? Please know that as professional marketers, we do this for a living and we still have to remind ourselves this all the time. Because I think what ends up happening is you get so used to your preferences and the way that you shop, the way that you view things, your likes and dislikes when it comes to social media and all this stuff, that you have to consistently pull yourself back to be like, "Hey, but is that the way your target audience thinks? Hey, is that how your ideal customer thinks?"
Chelsea: Exactly, I say this all the time because I have the biggest problem with this.
Vivian: Yes, because believe it or not, Chelsea here hates social media. No, I'm joking.
Chelsea: I mean.
Vivian: If it wasn't for listening to band stuff, she literally would probably not be on Instagram.
Chelsea: No, I'm not. If you're trying to Facebook message me, I don't have messenger. So I will never see your message, sorry.
Vivian: Okay, so any important stuff I'm sending to Chelsea via Facebook Messenger.
Chelsea: Why are you, what? Hey, here's our travel information to Facebook Messenger. Rude.
So that's how we're starting this conversation. You are not your target audience. Let's start with basic demographics. So your bare bones, basic demographics, it's going to be age, gender, location, income level, job status.
Vivian: Education level.
Chelsea: Yes, education level, their relationship status, are they married or single? Do they have children? I said location, right?
Vivian: Yes, and I think this is important when you're thinking about being able to sell anything to anyone, this really does play a hand in the way that you approach it. I think all of that gives you an overview, a picture of where somebody is in their life. What is attractive, what is compelling to somebody that is 21 years old in college, no dependents, is very different than what is compelling to somebody that is 40 years old with two children, that's married. Terminology that you use, verbiage, pain points, all of that changes depending on where people are sitting in life.
Chelsea: Terminology, I have a really short, really quick example of this. I went to TJ Maxx the other day with my friends. We went shopping and I'm checking out and you know they like to try to sell you their credit card. So she's like, you can save 10% and I said, no, I'm not interested. She's like, well, you know, you should do it because tax day is coming up if you have children. I was like, I don't have any children and that kind of threw her off. She just dropped the entire thing 'cause she didn't know how to pitch it to me after that.
Yeah. So that's an example. No, I don't have children, so the way she was trying to pitch it, that doesn't matter to me.
Vivian: But if you're your same age, 28, and you have three kids, right? All three need brand new clothing, school supplies, and you're going to be shopping at TJ Maxx, that might be the tipping point for you. She was smart to bring up the fact that it was a big spending day coming up.
Chelsea: Yes. It was very smart. She just used it with the wrong person.
Vivian: Well and it does get as I'm also a forty something year old with no children, it does get very weird because people don't quite know what to say then.
Chelsea: They don't know how to move on from there.
Vivian: Yeah, like how do I relate to you then if you don't have kids. Some of the big life stuff you just don't, we've opted out of and so they're like well, what's compelling to you then, if you're not a mom? You know?
Let's use that same example. Knowing what you do know about yourself, what would have been a compelling pitch.
Chelsea: A compelling pitch from her, knowing me.
Vivian: If it wasn't back to school shopping.
Chelsea: If it wasn't back to school shopping. She could have said something closer to, along the lines of like Halloween's coming up, so we're going to have a lot of spooky stuff coming in. Great example. My house is spooky year round. So this is the only time I get to stock up on my regular home decor.
Vivian: Which is probably why she doesn't have kids 'cause otherwise your kid would be like-
Chelsea: My kid would be just fine.
Vivian: What is that scary mo- it'd be like Wednesday Addams if you had a kid. She'd be one hundred percent Wednesday Addams.
Chelsea: What's wrong with Wednesday?
Vivian: No, she's cool. I like her.
Chelsea: Thank you!
Vivian: So have a baby and I'm going to be a cool auntie to Wednesday Addams.
Chelsea: No! We keep having this discussion, y'all. No, I'm not having children.
Vivian: I'm trying to get her to take one for the team and just have a baby for the family.
Chelsea: You take one for the team! Why do I have to take one for the team? I'm not doing this.
I do have a point that I want, moving on. I have a point that I want to make when it comes to basic demographics. Some of these demographics are going to matter a lot more than others. A great example of this is gender. For your small business, it could be that gender doesn't really matter because you're for anyone, or it could be that you're a very specific type of small business that is focused on a specific gender.
Vivian: Well and also let me reframe it to show you why this demographic is important, but you could still tailor it, okay? So like Chelsea said, we live down in the south. There are a ton of these cute little boutiques. Little too rich for my taste personally, but some people drop a lot of money in these little boutiques. Usually they're geared towards women, women's clothing and accessories. If you had a demographic where you were like, you know what, for this one marketing campaign, I want to target males though, and I want to target males within a certain income bracket that live within a 10 mile radius of the boutique I'm at. My positioning on this is going to be Mother's Day's coming up, gift certificates, Mother's Day's coming up, come shop, all this stuff. Or you can find a way to use this demographic information to tee up the campaign in a way that you want. So regardless of if your ideal customer is for females, you can always do the inverse and figure out a way to target the loved ones in their lives that may be looking to gift things to them. So back to your point though. Foundation. Bare minimum, you get the demographics. What's the next question you should be asking if you wanted to take it up a notch?
Chelsea: Let's take it up a notch. We're trying to get into their mentality. So what are their biggest struggles? What are their frustrations? What are their pain points? Specifically, a great way to frame this is how is your product going to help them in their lives?
Vivian: Yeah and I love this. I know part of our lore around here is that you guys know I love me some insurance agencies.
Chelsea: She sure does.
Vivian: I do. I love talking about it.
Chelsea: Okay, let's hear about insurance.
Vivian: No, but when you talk about pain points and it being a driver for how somebody can purchase something, it's just such a good driver. Because it taps into kind of a little bit of fear and then also wanting to be responsible and making sure you're ahead of things. Take for example the fact that at fifteen, kids are starting to learn how to drive. At sixteen, they're getting their driver's license. These are big changes in a family because for one it could mean more freedom for younger kids that then get to ride with the 16 year old, older child. the mom not having to run kids around town as much. It also creates a lot of stress in parents. Do I have the right insurance? I say all that to say with those big life changes and like Chelsea said, what are their biggest pain points. If you're selling car insurance, that would be one demographic that you could certainly tap into because it is the biggest change that's happening in a house when someone's turning 16.
Chelsea: Vivian, that's a great straight to the point example. Absolutely how it can work. It doesn't necessarily have to be that cut and dry though. Let's think about, let's say your target audience is having issues with disconnecting. They feel like they're spending too much time online, that's their pain point, that's their frustration, is they want to disconnect and really reconnect with their local community. But it can be hard to find places to do that.
Vivian: Yeah, absolutely. Interestingly enough, we have- I live out in the country, y'all. If y'all don't know, because you can't hear my chickens in the back, my cuckadoodle doos. I live in a very small community and we have a really great coffee shop up the road. They do a lot of community centered events because a lot of people out here own a little bit of land, we don't have like main streets where you could just shop and hang out and bump into people. Like a downtown area.
Chelsea: You have neighborhoods, but all your neighbors are further away.
Vivian: Yeah. It can be a little hard like you're saying to maybe reconnect with people or meet new friends. The local coffee shop, for one, they have done, you've heard me talk about this before, on Tuesday nights they do an open mic night. It's a way to encourage and to get local artists and I use that term loosely because you could be someone that reads poetry, you could be just learning how to play the piano, you could be a singer. They invite the community out there to have coffee, to enjoy tea and stuff, and listen to other people at Open Mic Night. That's been a big hit. But recently they did something specifically for I think moms with younger- families, not just moms. Families with younger children who maybe have a hard time or not old enough to be in school and so they can't find other kids to play with in the community.
They now do a thing every Monday morning where you could come out, bring your children, they get to play, they have some activity that the kids could do. Then the moms or the dads get to meet each other as well. I love this idea, like you said, a pain point that you tap into doesn't necessarily have to be super cut and dry. It could be you knowing your target audience well enough to know, like, hey, the coffee shop knows. We have a lot of families that we want to tap into locally. This community doesn't exactly have a place for them to huddle and to meet and to make new friends. Let this be the place for it. So let us come up with a way to get people out there. It benefits them because what do you think the parents are doing for the hour, two hours that the kids are sitting there doing this activity? Obviously they're going to be eating a breakfast sandwich, having a cup or two of coffee, doing all that.
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Vivian: This episode of the S.O.B. Marketing podcast is brought to you by the S.O.B. Community. If you are a small business owner that is neglecting your marketing and you feel like you've wasted time and money on marketing help that didn't deliver. Or if you're just craving support from people who actually get what it's like to run and promote a small business, then our membership community is for you. Visit skool.com/sob to sign up today to get instant access and weekly support. That's S-K-O-O-L dot com slash sob.
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Vivian: Aligned with that, how do people like to spend their time and money?
Chelsea: That's a good question.
Vivian: This is huge insight, because I think this, lifestyle, is such a big thing that doesn't fit in this tiny box. You can certainly have a product or service that is tapping into someone's very particular lifestyle. We used the example earlier of somebody that's 20 in college and what motivates them is going to be very different than somebody that's in their forties with a family and a career and kids.
Chelsea: Well, and I think it's important that we're asking this question along with basic demographics, because let's say I'm your target audience. I very specifically don't have kids, so I don't spend money on anything to do with children.
Vivian: It'd be kinda creepy if you did.
Chelsea: Well yeah, that'd be so creepy. Well, no, because it could be that I have nieces and nephews. Now I don't do that. I don't spend money on any children. But you can't base it off of just my gender and age. You have to base it off of my lifestyle.
Vivian: Correct.
Chelsea: Now you know I'm not spending money on children. What am I spending money on?
Vivian: So what are you spending money on?
Chelsea: Band stuff. Concerts.
Vivian: Local markets.
Chelsea: And local markets. I just like weird, unique things. I really do.
Vivian: Yeah. Well and I love when you start asking what people are spending their money on because I have found this. As I get older, I am more and more interested and amazed and in awe and curious as to- no seriously, as to what people choose to spend their money on and how they spend their time. Because those are two very clear indicators of what you prioritize in life. No judgment either way. You spend your money, listen. You work, you do the thing, you spend your money wherever the heck you want. I don't care.
For example, my husband does wood flooring as a business. Yesterday we were dropping off equipment to a job site that he's working at. In there we're looking around, pretty cool person has like 15 acres of land and stuff, very modest house, not super fancy cars or anything, but they've chosen to invest in other things, right? In the house, more so the farm and this and that. In my head, I love seeing where people prioritize the stuff they're going to spend their money on. Some people are the people that want to be spending money on designer handbags, designer shoes, and then there are people that are like, let me spend money on the house, let me spend money on vacation, experiences. All priorities.
Chelsea: Even just, in the book community. There are some people that are like, I'm going to buy this book and then read it. I know very specifically me and a lot of the people I know, you gotta read the book first. If you like the book then you purchase it.
Vivian: Really?
Chelsea: You didn't know that? That's what I do.
Vivian: So you'll check it out at the library and then if you like it you'll go find it.
Chelsea: If I like the book, then I'll purchase it because then my library is full of things that I love.
Vivian: Right, right, and books that you will want to read again.
Chelsea: Yes, books I will want to read again. I think it's a great statement of who I am. The books that I love. But just little things like that. Understanding what your target audience prioritizes is important.
Vivian: Yeah, the other thing that I always kinda giggle about is I feel like people who put bumper stickers or stickers on their car very quickly, they're loud and proud about what they love. So you know, we live down here in the South. A lot of it is, we have a lot of people that like to share what gun range they go to. A lot of people that also like to share what affiliations or what groups they're a part of and all that. But I think it's interesting. It gives you very specific insight as to what people are proud to be a member of. That can be a big driver. The other thing is as a marketer, professional marketer, one of the things that it lends itself to is if I understand what type of lifestyle that person's living. Everything else just kind of aligns to it. Okay. So for example, I'm about to go on my first hike here in a couple weeks and it's going to be a three day camping thing and hike. I'm super excited about it. But when you're looking for products to buy for this sort of thing, it's interesting to see the feedback that I'm reading through. Someone who prioritizes this type of lifestyle, it can lend to the type of car they buy. So maybe they need a car that's able to go on more terrains than just a, I don't know, like a regular, you know-
Chelsea: Corolla.
Vivian: Like a Corolla, right. They might need a Jeep, right? Or take for example people that do buy Jeeps. Jeep life is a big deal to them. They like going to these meetups, they like displaying their ducks on the windshield and stuff.
Chelsea: What's with ducks nowadays?
Vivian: Well, it's a Jeep thing.
Chelsea: No, but I just see ducks everywhere now. Like everyone's naming their business- Odd Duck, Duck Donuts. Everything, everyone's into ducks. I mean I'm not hating, I'm just a little confused.
Vivian: What did ducks ever do to you?
Chelsea: Nothing. I'm just a little confused.
Vivian: Ooh, the ducks have been around a long time and they have never gotten their shining moment. Now that they do, you're complaining?
Chelsea: You know what? That's my bad. You're right. I'm going to be respectful of the ducks.
Vivian: Next thing I know you're going to be complaining about swans.
Chelsea: Well, swans are very cliquey. Just saying.
Vivian: They're the ones buying designer handbags.
Chelsea: They are.
Let's bring this back to why-
Vivian: You want to come off the swans?
Chelsea: Yeah, let's...well no, the swans are going to come get us is what's going to happen. We need to shut our mouths. Moving on from the swans.
Vivian: We're going to anger the wrong swan.
Chelsea: Absolutely. Have you seen swans? They get real angry real quick. Look, I'm moving on, okay? I want to bring up why we're talking about lifestyle. If you truly understand your target audience's lifestyle, you can display that to them through your imagery, through your language, through your marketing. That is the quickest way for them to feel seen. They're going to be like, this business gets me.
Vivian: Instant connection.
Chelsea: They understand who I am, instant connection.
Vivian: Almost because you have to understand what's underneath all of that. If you get my priorities and my lifestyle and where my head's at, then you get just who I am as a whole.
Chelsea: Yeah.
Vivian: Good point.
Chelsea: So next question, Vivian. What kind of spender are they?
Vivian: I like this one. This is one that we really don't talk about when we talk about target audience.
Chelsea: That's what I was thinking and I feel like this is a really big one. I feel like this is something we should think about. What kind of spender are they in the terms of, are they always looking for a deal? Or do they just want to focus on the quality of the product instead? Are they looking to- great example, are they looking to buy in bulk? Do they buy in bulk? Or do they just purchase whenever they need something? Thinking about those quirks is a really big deal. It's going to help you better understand how to prioritize pricing when it comes to your business.
Vivian: Yeah, and it could also maybe if you're a small business owner and you haven't asked yourself this about your target audience, maybe what you'll find is opportunity. I think that's such a great, a great thing. Like I'm thinking just now, there are some products that are usually aligned with this, right? we always rag on Brita for their marketing these days 'cause it's just, I don't even know how to describe it.
Chelsea: Go look at Brita's social media. Go look at it.
Vivian: Yeah. But the first thing that came to mind is Brita Filters. If you're using one of their products, usually you're buying stuff in a three pack or whatever because you don't want to run out of that thing. There could be opportunities where if you're asking yourself, "how does my target audience spend their money, what kind of spender are they?" You may find room there that you haven't thought of before where maybe you're saying, it might make more sense for me to sell this in a bundle than to sell it just individually one on one.
Chelsea: Yeah, that's a great example. Another one would be artistry. If you're creating a custom product, your target audience, the people who are actually going to purchase from you, most likely are not going to be- hopefully are not trying to haggle with you or look for a deal or something like that. They're looking for a quality, unique product.
Vivian: It reminds me of something I just saw, what you just said. There was an artist that uses Instagram as the main way for them to get their art seen and purchased. She did this funny post on things that people have said to her about her artwork and just the price point, right? They're always like, well I can make this at home and she's like, great, do it.
To Chelsea's point, this could also be the way. Knowing your target audience is a really good frame of mind for you because then you're not going to give in to every whim of someone trying to discount what you're doing.
Chelsea: It's knowing your target audience and knowing who's not your target audience. Because anyone who wants to haggle with you is probably not someone who's going to end up making that final purchase.
Vivian: So many times small business owners, you'll hear them say this when it comes to clients and stuff. Usually the clients that try to haggle them and they'll give in are the ones that are the most cumbersome to deal with. The ones who pay them the premium price point that they're asking for are the ones who are the easiest to work with because they understand-
Chelsea: They've understood the product and the value of your product and they wanted that specifically.
Vivian: Absolutely. Thank you for bringing this up. This is probably a really good thing to keep in mind while you're navigating through, whether it's setting up your pricing or just setting up your website, doing all this stuff. Knowing their spending habits and who you are for is going to align, everything else is going to align based off of that.
Chelsea: I'm glad you brought that bundles description, description? Example. I think that was a great way of framing that too.
Vivian: Yeah, there are people out there. What it reminded me of is my husband recently, he loves purchasing organic stuff, all natural stuff, right? There are some soaps. It's hard to find soap sometimes that is just naturally made. He's found a couple of brands he likes online. Recently he found one that he really loved their products and they have a moisturizer and then a soap thing. They apparently had this huge thing where you could buy a big bundle of it. He probably has enough for the rest of the year. I'm not kidding you guys. Okay. So this man will never buy soap again for a full year. But there are, obviously the company knew that there were people out there wanting to buy in bulk and so they're like, Hey, we're going to give you a really great deal, buy an obnoxious amount of our product.
Chelsea: I wonder how Vivian feels about this.
Vivian: No, I love it but then again, we also if we're your target audience, we also live out in the country. Which means that anytime we go grocery shopping, we stock up on stuff.
Chelsea: No, that makes sense.
Vivian: If you're selling a type of product that's geared towards people like us, you would understand that our buying patterns might seem unusual to some people, but there are people out there who are willing to spend X, Y, and Z on that kind of stuff. So the key there is just knowing who your target audience is, tapping into that and then leaning towards what they're wanting. Look for opportunities and be open to those opportunities.
Chelsea: Okay, Vivian, this is also a big, I think all of these questions are really important. I'm also the one who wrote these notes, so that makes sense. But this is a good one.
Vivian: She's giving herself an A+.
Chelsea: Pat on the back. Where does your target audience like to hang out and where do they get their information?
Vivian: Yeah, how do they communicate? Such a big thing that is going to drive all kinds of stuff. So what's it going to drive mainly?
Chelsea: How you communicate with them. I mean don't, if your target audience loves getting emails, don't send them a postcard, you know? If your target audience spends their time on Facebook, don't go on to LinkedIn.
Vivian: Yeah, well and I love what this does, this question, because let me tell you, let me give you a funny example of this. If you remember when we started this podcast, one of the things Chelsea and I have healthcare marketing backgrounds. One of the things we always talked about is that Medicare, because they are targeting a higher population or higher aged, no.
Chelsea & Vivian: An older.
Vivian: I was like, that does not translate. What am I trying to say? Because they are targeting an older population, for them the bulk of their funds, these Medicare Advantage plans, goes towards direct mail, postcards.
Chelsea: I have a bad example.
Vivian: But listen. This is the interesting part about it. Years ago I would tell you that yes, if you're dealing with the older population, postcards are a sure fit, blah blah blah. Still a sure fit sometimes, but also what we have to account for is the way that technology has changed the way that the older population now receives their information. There are so many more people now that like texts. They want a text reminder. They want a text, this and that. Now they also could be the population that thinks it's a scam. Okay. So there are things you have to consider within that. But what I'm saying is in marketing, part of the reason that we have this podcast is because we tell you guys things don't stay stagnant. We have to, as small business owners, address that. We have to understand that great sixty plus now knows how to work their way around a phone. They know what a Facebook ad is. They love getting texts. So it changes the conversation a little bit.
The weird part about it is postcards are just as effective for a different reason because they now stand out more because lots of people aren't doing postcards. So the thinking behind it, the reason you do the thing might change, which means therefore it may change your message depending on how and who you're targeting, but it doesn't necessarily mean that postcards are gone and they're old school and they don't work.
Chelsea: Yeah. They definitely do work and postcards are a great tool if you're trying to focus on like your local community. Great for targeting a very specific geographical area. I want to push back a little bit with your older generation thing because I have a different experience. I did taxes this year. Well, I do my taxes, but I was working-
Vivian: IRS, she does her taxes every year.
Chelsea: I do my taxes every year. I was working in the tax industry this year and I found that social security was emailing a lot of information this year and these poor older people had no idea how to get any of that information because they're so used to it getting mailed and they're like, I don't know how to get into my email. Okay, well then you need to log into your social security account. Well I don't know how to do that either. I just know that they're supposed to mail it to me. So that became such a- and you know, shame on y'all. Don't just randomly start emailing people instead of mailing it out when you've been mailing it out for years. It caused a lot of problems this year because a lot of people just did not know how to get their information because it wasn't mailed to them.
Vivian: Yeah, and so what that tells me is the rollout of communication wasn't effective because it was probably nil, none. Zero, nothing.
Chelsea: You could have done, what they should have done is send out a letter saying, "hey, we're going to email it to you this year".
Vivian: Keep this letter. This is how you log in. Here are the instructions. That's the whole thing is communication is key. But I love this question for the reason that for one, if you know how people are communicating and also where they're getting their information, talk about a shortcut to being able to convert people or to make sales or to tap into a certain audience. That's the thing. If you're where the person is congregating, where they're sharing their opinions, where they're sharing their ideas, you know where they're getting their news from, then you very quickly could- I don't want to say take advantage of that in a bad way, but you can use it to your advantage for sure.
Chelsea: Absolutely. I do want to say one thing, and this is going to be specifically in regard to social media. Show up where your target audience is online, social media-wise, as long as you can handle it. If it's a platform that you cannot stand, I don't want to say don't bother, but if you're not going to commit to it, then don't waste your time.
Vivian: Yes, and that's across the board. I kinda think of it as, what's one of those diagrams called where they overlap.
Chelsea : A venn diagram?
Vivian: Venn diagram. Yes.
Chelsea: A what? A Venn diagram.
Vivian: Venn diagram.
Chelsea: Okay. You said it weird.
Vivian: Okay. That's how I kind of see this, right? You want to have it meet two needs. You want it to be the place where your target audience is so that you could tap into them and reach them and they could find your business, but you also want it to be something that is doable and that you enjoy doing because that's the only way you're going to get consistent with it. You can tell when people are just trying to stay active on something and that's not the vibe you want to give. Make sure your venn diagram of your marketing initiatives aligns with both those things.
Chelsea: Okay, Vivian, so our next question. If your target audience is looking for advice or help, who or what are they going to? So great example of this, let's say they're looking for a local restaurant. Are they going on TikTok or are they asking a friend?
Vivian: Or are they going on Reddit?
Chelsea: Or are they going on Reddit? Yeah. Where are they going to gather information when they need it?
Vivian: Yeah, let me give you a real life example of something that happened yesterday. I mentioned my husband's doing flooring. He needed a very specific type of tool that is very specific to flooring. So of course the one place we're going to go to pick it up in person is Home Depot. When we get to Home Depot, we find the section where all these tools are and they have all the other types of tools except the one tool, very specific tool he needs. We know that if it's not in this area, it's not in stock, right? So of course, there are two options to where we're going to go to find information on this. Where are we going to go to see if it's in stock?
Chelsea: I would find a person.
Vivian: Okay, so we're going to ask an in-store rep, and or we can look online, right? Because online they usually keep whether stuff's in stock.
Chelsea: See, I don't usually trust online.
Vivian: See I do online stuff a lot. So we find the in-person and he's there looking, talking to my husband, he's like, yeah, I don't see any, and then he pulls out his little thing now to check if it's in stock. They're looking through product and as they're doing this, I'm pulling up my phone and I'm simply asking the AI overview in Google, like blah blah blah, do they have this in stock? They say no, they don't have it in stock at the Summerville location of Home Depot. However, it looks like Lowe's might have it. I told them, hey, it says that it's not in stock.
The guy happens to pull up at the same time something he goes, is this it? He says, it does say we have three in stock. It's on this bay, but we're all looking for it. It's not there. You look further up to the very tippy top and it's behind a closed thing. He's like, great, let me get up there, unlock it, and we'll take it. So he does that. I told my husband, well now I'm not going to trust AI overview anymore.
Chelsea: I already told you not to do that, but go ahead.
Vivian: The guy was saying though how their he goes-well, interesting because they had launched within the Home Depot app this new AI thing. He's like, I wonder if it showed there that we were out of stock, and therefore that's why the AI was saying it's out of stock, right?
I thought it was interesting because I'm like, think of the two different ways that we went looking for the same type of information and we got two different outcomes. Had I just relied on the online stuff we would have gone to a different store. But we asked the person that's on site. So I say all this to kind of remind you guys, when you're asking this question of how people are finding stuff online, don't you think it would behoove Home Depot to make sure that their records online indicate the correct things being in stock? Because it would deter somebody who is looking for something very specific if it says it's not in stock, but you guys have three of them in stock. You're going to lose out on sales.
So the importance of you asking this question is at the end of the day, it can affect your bottom line because if people are going to a resource that's not even on your radar to get information, you potentially are not maintaining and keeping the information up to date and therefore you could be losing out on sales.
Chelsea: Vivian, that was a great example. Look at you. You're good at marketing.
Vivian: What? It does impact so much more than that. Okay. So key things to think about when people are going and looking for information. Remember, Google's not going away. It is still a big driver for stuff. If you have a in-store or a retail store, make sure your hours are correct. Make sure all your data is filled in on your profile. Make sure you're linking your website so that they can direct link to your website to get your menu, your pertinent information, all that stuff.
Reddit is feeding a lot of these AI, you know, tools. So that's another thing that you can, you know, go on Reddit, see where people's discussion is going, where they're getting, what these forums look like, what the conversations look like, so that you could take advantage of that and you could show up there. Social media, you know, all that stuff.
Chelsea: Vivian, I don't think I added this to the discussion. I didn't, but I do kind of also want to mention who the gatekeeper is in a family. This is something that we talk about in marketing, but this is where we're starting to really get into marketing. Who the gatekeeper is in a family unit, who's making the purchasing decisions? I feel like this kind of relates to this question and something that you should keep in the back of your head. Is it the mother who's making the purchasing decisions? Are you focusing on teens that already have their own spending money? That's going to help you with verbiage when it comes to advertising and stuff like that. Who are you specifically talking to?
Vivian: Yeah, it certainly does and this can change by industry, by product and by service. What I think about a lot of times is during Christmas time, we often joke that moms make a lot of the Christmas purchases. Sometimes the dads are like, "what did we buy them". Just knowing and having a pulse on that can definitely help you craft campaigns that are a little more effective because you're going straight to the person that is the spender.
Chelsea: Exactly, and that might be something that you guys super need to focus on, but I just wanted to bring it up because I think that can be a great help when you are crafting your messaging and your verbiage.
Vivian: We talked about having healthcare experience in our background. One of the things that back when I started almost like two decades ago we were taught or not taught, but it was common knowledge that the moms were the drivers of a lot of the appointment setting and a lot of the urging their husbands to get appointments, primary care, all that stuff.
Has that since changed? I'm sure it has, just because people are being a little more, I think, progressive in the way they approach their health care. But back then, what that did is it helped us to be able to shape communication, to understand that a lot of the healthcare decisions were being made by the women in the household. If you were wanting to remind men of colorectal cancer screenings, maybe the best way to do it was by reminding the women that are effectively coordinating a lot of this care and scheduling the appointments that their husbands needed this type of screening. That was important.
The data, the information you can use to pass through or to find the best way to reach your target audience. So understanding that component does really help in being able to get your information in front of the people you need to get to.
Chelsea: Okay, Vivian, so this is our last question and I think this is also a really big one. Something to know and keep in mind. How informed is your target audience about your industry? In your industry? So is there a learning curve? Do you have to teach your target audience about your product? Or do they know what's going on and you can just dive in, you know?
Vivian: Well, and this specifically, when it comes to products or services that are new, we've seen this. I love seeing this in real time because I love seeing the way that small business owners approach this type of thing differently. I'll give you two examples.
Chelsea: Let's do it.
Vivian: Okay. The first one is going to be, we live in the Charleston, South Carolina area and we saw this sudden service pop up- head spas.
Chelsea: Ugh, I want to go to a head spa.
Vivian: No, it's on my to-do list as well. There's one particular person, I think it's Charleston Head Spa, that's the name of the business. It started off one girl and she set up her shop. It became so popular because she did such a good job at this that now she's like branched out and I think she has like several locations and is doing fabulous, yes. The key here is, a head spa for those of you that don't know, it's not going to get your haircut or anything else. It's specifically for people who either want the relaxation of having somebody massage their scalp or someone that's looking for like scalp health. Okay. Either way, you get 60 minutes, 90 minutes, someone is sitting there just massaging your head, but also doing treatments on it and kind of washing through it, doing all this stuff. This was not a thing just a couple years ago.
Chelsea: It's kind of like when you go to get your hair done and they shampoo your hair, it is just that part. But it's a lot more focused on scalp health too and stuff like that.
Vivian: The way that she had to create her videos to show people, to set the expectation. When you're coming, you can add a blow blowout to it, but that's not part of the service. That's an add-on. The way she approached it in setting the expectations, teaching people exactly what a head spa was, a head massage service was, was fabulous and it definitely went viral and therefore she got a ton of clientele and was able to expand and grow off of it. So that's one example of that. The other one is something a little more practical. I had a friend who he has a side business where people are putting up kitchen cabinets. It's typically really hard to do that stuff.
Chelsea: Sure. I mean I have the whole curtain fiasco so I can't even imagine.
Vivian: So they ended up creating this thing where it was super easy. It's a back end system that you put on the back of your kitchen cabinets and you're able to hang them up like really, really fast and easy. Brilliant because it was taking something that was creating a pain point for people and it was making it super easy through a mechanism, a tool that just cut through all that. Lots of people though have questions about this. Weight, right? How much weight can it hold? How easy is it to install? You have to teach people how to install it correctly so that it works correctly, this and that. The amount of education and training that went into showing people what this new tool could do was pretty extensive. Now, here's the key though, once you get it into you know someone's hands they love it because it's super easy to do and they're not having to go out and pay somebody to come in and do all this stuff for them.
There are certain products like you were saying that you're going to have to teach people about, either the industry or the product and service that you're doing.
Chelsea: Now, I have a third example, why it's important to know about your target audience. Let's say you're specifically targeting vets, not the consumers. This is a big thing in healthcare, in healthcare marketing. You're not targeting the end consumers, you're targeting the vets themselves. Well, now you don't necessarily-
Vivian: The vets?
Chelsea: Yeah. The vets, V E T S- veterinarians.
Vivian: Oh!
Chelsea: I'm sorry y'all. Okay. Let's think about a drug for pets.
Vivian: Yes. I was going to say, how did we go from hanging cabinets to vets?
Chelsea: Veterinarians!
Vivian: I didn't know if you were talking about veterinarians or veterans.
Chelsea: No, not veterans. I'm sorry. That's my bad, y'all. Veterinarians. Let's say I have a new drug for dogs. Veterinarians are who I'm targeting.
Vivian: So you're going straight to the consumer?
Chelsea: I'm not going straight to the consumer, I'm going to the experts in the field. If it's a new drug, then I'm going to use a lot of language that I would not use with the end consumer.
Vivian: Yes.
Chelsea: Because the end consumer doesn't need to know how the drug actually works. I mean they need to know and understand the concept of the drug, but everything that the vet needs to know is a lot more intricate. Also thinking about who your target audience is in the scope of where your product is going.
Vivian: Yes, and the level of education. No, you're right. I'm glad you brought this up because that is a big point. Here's the kicker, you guys, is maybe you have more than one target audience, okay? That's the thing. If you have a product or service where like Chelsea is saying, we're a new drug company, we have something that we figured out works best for pets, we're going to launch it. Great. The marketing material and the marketing information that we have geared towards the vets are going to be very different than the end consumer when we're doing the brochure to put in the vet's office for the person to take home. As far as how to use the drug, how to make sure that it works effectively, all that. So you can have several groups of target audience. What we don't want you guys to do is to sit there and have fifteen, twenty different target audiences because then you're making your life miserable. Try to group them as much as you can so that way you're effectively able to make quick decision to say, that's going to target this specific audience that I'm tapping into.
Can I add just one small thing in here?
Chelsea: Absolutely not.
Vivian: You can decide how to form this question because I haven't, it just kind of popped in my mind.
I think it's also important when you're talking about your target audience and understanding who they are to consider if you want to grow with them. Where they are in life and if you're a product or service or a business that's going to grow with them or just stay with them in that spot.
Chelsea: Do you have a permanent target audience or not? I feel like is what that question would be. Because if it's a permanent target audience, what we mean is let's say you're focusing on teens, those teens are going to grow up and they're not going to be your target audience anymore. That's okay because there's still more teens. Like we as a population keep growing. Or for your product, do you want to grow with the teens? Do you want to keep that specific, it's not demographic. But those people. Do you want to keep those specific people and grow with them?
Vivian: You may have a better example of this, but what I'm thinking of maybe, if I'm Subaru, right? If I'm a car company and I have a group of people that I'm selling to in their 20s because they're adventurous and they're out, they're all terrain, all this stuff. Am I making the decision to say they've already bought from us. I want to tap into those recurring sales. Therefore, what I'm going to do is kind of as they evolve and get older, I'm also going to use that information to try to tap into where they're at at that point in life. There could be ways where you still follow them into their 30s or in their 40s. Every time that they're making a new car purchase, you're kind of trying to get ahead of them before they're making that car purchase. I don't know if maybe that looks like, you know, typically our cars last fifteen years. At year 10, we're going to start sending them information. Is your family growing? Do you need more room? We have a Subaru for that. Blah, blah, blah. You know, so there could be ways to decide, do I want to make them my permanent target audience? Or like Chelsea said, are we a product that simply is meeting them at a phase that they're at and then we're just going to let them move out of that phase and welcome new people into it.
Chelsea: Yes, I will say a lot of companies now are doing both. I think fairly well, and you can see this with the growth in nostalgia marketing. The only example I can think of off the top of my head is Nickelodeon, but I can't give, this the only busi-no, Disney.
Disney has a lot of Disney adults and they know that. They are slowly making marketing decisions that also target those Disney adults. So they're growing with that target audience. Now is that their primary target audience? No, their primary target audience is still children, but they've created a second, what's the word I'm looking for? Like section, target audience, pipeline, a whole different side of their marketing campaign that focuses on these Disney adults.
Vivian: Yeah, and they do it really, really well because I'll tell you, even on all the platforms, there are TikToks that are dedicated to people being Disney adults and taking full advantage of the parks and basically they've turned into brand evangelists for the parks all over again to remind people, "hey, when you come to the park, this is all the cool stuff now you could take advantage of it. If you guys haven't listened to our previous episode about reoccurring sales. please go listen to that because I'm going to make mention of something Chelsea mentioned in that episode.
Chelsea: Oh god, what did I do?
Vivian: No, I think the way to do this, you had mentioned Pumas, which is a local hot dog restaurant in Summerville, South Carolina, and how Tim, your boyfriend, got on their Hall of Fame, quote unquote, because-
Chelsea: He's in the Hundred Hot Dog Club.
Vivian: If Puma wanted to make these permanent target audiences, they'd start a thousand hot dog club.
Chelsea: Please no.
Vivian: Tim's going to be fifty and he's going to be in the thousand hot dog clubs.
Chelsea: If I come home one day and he's like, I'm on the wall again because I hit a thousand hot dogs, I'm going to lose it. I'm going to be like, what do you mean a thousand? A thousand? A thousand. That's insane.
Vivian: So I bring that up just because I think there are a ton of- understanding that about your product and service and whether it can grow with people and then also asking yourself, is this a target audience that I'm going to grow with or is it just kind of someone that's passing through? That does help with looking at what opportunities you may have in the future to sell and all of it's correlated, right?
Chelsea: That's our big takeaway most days is that marketing everything correlates with one another.
Vivian: Yeah, it's all interconnected. Which speaking of, it's all interconnected. So you SOBs out there, we want you to go and leave us reviews. We want you to rate us, okay? Even if it's not a five star-
Chelsea: No.
Vivian: Chelsea will be riding and hunting you down and beating you up if you give us a one star.
Chelsea: I would never beat anyone up.
Vivian: "I would never."
Chelsea: I would never! Subscribe please. Subscribe, now I feel like I'm being bossy. Pretty, pretty please go subscribe. Follow us, leave a review, it helps us get in front of other business owners like you guys and you know what. Go be the best SOBs you can be.