Tired of spending high dollars on all sorts of marketing activities only to be inundated afterward with a bunch of contacts that aren’t right for your business for one reason or another?
You’re not alone. Low-value prospects are one of the biggest drains on the time and resources of marketing and sales staffs. Yet this problem often can be mitigated. One key way is to adopt a more targeted approach to your marketing. With targeted marketing, you’re better able to draw out the buyers you most want—without wasting valuable resources on those outside of your market.
More important, when marketers move away from broad-based messages, instead designing their content and distribution programs around applicable audience segments, they’re often able to move the sales needle in ways unseen before. That’s because the value and relevance of more customized content draws deeper engagement from those accounts with associated needs.
PMMI Media Group has found that emails sent to groups of less than 5,000 PMMI Media Group readers segmented by industry or equipment interest have a 2.5 times higher click through rate than similar emails sent to groups of 18,000 readers without segmentation.
Of course, targeting isn’t for everyone. Generally, companies who benefit the most from using targeted marketing strategies are those that offer specialized products or expertise, such as companies with equipment used by limited industries (e.g., coffee bagging versus palletizing), or those with dedicated offerings around a specific function (e.g., blending/mixing equipment information sent to someone who has known interest in blending/mixing processes).
Five common targeting missteps
Targeted marketing also requires some slight changes in strategy. When developing your approach, it’s important to avoid these common missteps.
Not adapting creative to reflect your targeted audience.To cut through the noise of generic ads, you’ll want to maximize ad performance and tailor creative so it appeals to the specific industry or interest used as the target criterion. The more personalized and relevant your creative appears, the better it will perform. If you’re taking the effort to direct your marketing to, poultry processors, then be sure your visuals and messaging all reflect use of your product in relation to poultry.
Going too narrow.Another mistake is over-targeting. Too often marketers limit campaigns to only corporate or management titles. Not only are these titles generally the least responsive, but also they are only one of the buying team. If you’re focusing extensively on senior-level titles, you’re missing out on key voices and often those who will be the most likely to bring your company to the table to begin with. Your best bet is to focus on the real deal signals around buying decisions. Ask yourself: “Am I reaching all decision influencers?”
Going too broad.The flipside to over-targeting is the campaign that’s trying to be everything to everyone. If you’re not selecting an audience segment based on a common criterion and appealing to them based on this criterion, then you’re not effectively targeting. Diverse or dissimilar audiences will dilute messaging. (For example, a food conveying video featuring dog biscuits going to both pet food and dairy manufacturers won’t be as effective with the dairy audience as a separate video and messaging centered around packages of cheese.) An all-encompassing message simply won’t be as strong as one with immediate, easily recognized relevancy.
Giving insufficient thought to pipeline and timing. Proper planning also goes into effective use of targeting. For sales enablement, you’ll need a media plan that ensures you’re hitting the same target audience regularly and with different content that appeals to varied level of buying interest.
High-quality leads don’t happen in a vacuum—you need to get on prospects’ radar first. Branding awareness, whether through targeted banner ads, pre-roll, social outreach or other means, should be ongoing and part of every targeted media plan. These efforts help ensure you’re top of mind once the prospect is actively researching. More awareness will lead to more interest (response to click- or form-based content), which ultimately results in more–and better–leads. Having a media plan in place that exposes the targeted audience to consistent messaging with both awareness- and interest-level advertising will help ensure you are maximizing pipeline. (Generally, you’ll want to run an “interest” campaign one to three months after an awareness campaign has started—while it’s still running.)
Not tailoring your landing page.Also important is having consistency between your creative and your landing pages. The more you can present a seamless experience on why your product or service is well-suited to the needs of the particular audience segment, the more likely the audience will be to continue to connect with your brand. Sending your targeted audience to a generic homepage and making them search for messaging that is relevant to them will chip away at the impression that your business is especially suited to their needs.
Targeting with the PMMI Audience Network
Although you’re now armed with these best practices, your marketing department may still need help rolling out a strategic approach that delivers results. PMMI Media Group has a dedicated team and the tools to make it easy to target a single audience multiple times.
For example, one way machine builders can adopt a more targeted approach to marketing is through use of the PMMI Audience Network. Simply choose the desired audience and select a multi-touch targeting package with a mix of branding ads, video pre-roll, Facebook sponsored posts/video, targeted direct mail or targeted email. You’re also able to choose recipients from PMMI Media Group’s vast database of packaging, processing and automation professionals using criteria such as:
- Industry
- Job title
- Equipment category or materials interest
- Types of packaging or processing functions taking place within the plant
- Geography
- PACK EXPO pre-registration
In addition, all packaging and processing audience is validated through PMMI’s proprietary, Dun & Bradstreet-enhanced algorithm to screen out competing suppliers and other non-end users.
Now, you’ll be generating more meaningful business discussions and advancing sales in no time!
To learn more about PMMI’s Audience Network, go to: oemgo.to/pmgaudience
