With the right databases, businesses can market products & services to specific consumer-pools. But this is not enough, because reaching out to the right crowds isn’t the same as becoming a trusted brand. That’s is why sometimes marketing broadcasts fall flat even though they are delivered to the most qualified pools of consumers.
Here we talk about factors that contribute to the success of your marketing broadcasts, and the importance of nurturing consumer trust.
Let’s begin by understanding how targeted marketing is used to bridge businesses to markets that need their products & services.
Example #1:
A student-care business can advertise to large pools of young parents with children in targeted districts during school enrollment periods with email. This provides them with a platform to showcase curriculum and images of vibrant environments in their grounds.
Example #2:
A property agent can distribute flyers to homeowners in HDB clusters that are fast approaching their minimum occupancy period (MOP). She can also utilize MMS broadcasts to showcase newly launched properties for sale.
Example #3:
A SPA or beauty salon can advertise their wellness services and make their location known to residents staying nearby their place of business. They can do this by offering deals via SMS. All customers have to do it to flash the message to claim a discount.
By reaching out to pools potential customers, the businesses hopes to create 2 possibilities:
- Acquire a new customer.
- Seed a future sale.
But these 2 possibilities are not enough to warrant a flood of sales and enquiries. The second and most vital step is to cultivate trust.
As consumers ourselves, we often receive multiple offers from familiar companies. Aren’t we all accustomed to receiving notices from shopping or online food delivery portals? We may receive a timely offer and make a quick purchase – or we might not. But for a purchase to even happen, familiarity and trustworthiness are always the prerequisites. We won’t be buying a pair of AirPods Pro from an unknown portal, but we would happily buy a pair on Shopee.
Really, it all boils down to 2 questions: How trustworthy the brand is to us? And is it the right offer? If the brand is well familiar and trusted, the right offers leads us to making a purchase almost immediately.
For the business, the compounding benefits builds up when targeted marketing is applied consistently, thus presenting offers to potential customers, and at the same time nurturing familiarity with every touchpoint created. This allows for marketing campaigns to stand on the shoulders on their predecessors, rather than be in their shoes – whereby every attempt starts from scratch.
In practical terms, sending 10 marketing messages to 10,000 people over the course of 6 months would be far more effective than sending one email to 100,000 people in a single day.
One more thing to note is that this closely relates to our social instincts as well… between someone who regularly asks you out for a meal & chit-chat, and someone who calls you after ages to share a triangle-shaped business opportunity, who would you deem as the more reliable individual?
The same goes for businesses, targeted marketing and regular engagements are combined to nurture trust, leading to preference, resulting in sales.
In Conclusion
Targeted marketing lets businesses build on previous efforts by allowing them to continually amass potential customers while establishing trust. This allows brands to graduate from being obscure to becoming a purchase option through multiple touchpoints with their target audience.