How To Turn Data Into Sales with Advanced Customer Targeting

How to Turn Data Into Sales

See how advanced customer targeting can help you leverage data and generate higher sales.

Companies are often flush with customer data – everything from purchase history to demographics to website visits and more. However, few businesses know how to turn that data into insights that will help drive additional sales. How do you turn data into sales? You start with better customer targeting. Research shows that a whopping 60% of a campaign’s success lies in whom you target, 20% comes from the creative, and the final 20% from the offer.

Let’s review the methods that will help you target the people that are most likely to respond to your marketing. Doing so allows you to do more with less, increasing your sales and marketing ROI. While these ideas work for any business, they’re particularly good strategies for small business customer segmentation and targeting.

Article Contents:

• Understanding the Customer Pyramid
• Leveraging Customer Data
• Looking Beyond Email
• Targeting Businesses & Employees
• Marketing to Your Competitors’ Customers
• Segmenting Your Locations
• Elevating to More Advanced Methods
• Frequently Asked Questions

Understanding the Customer Pyramid

You can look at your customers and the potential consumers like layers in a pyramid. At the foundation are all consumer households, as well as the employees of the businesses around you. At the top are your most valuable and loyal customers. By evaluating the characteristics of those at the top, and finding similar consumers at the bottom, you can uncover valuable prospects.

Leveraging Customer Data

Another key to effective customer targeting is using the data from your customer databases, such as a CRM (customer relationship management) system or loyalty database. Segmenting your customers is a key first step. Whether you use RFM (recency, frequency, monetary value) or the date they joined your database, analyzing customer behavior patterns provides invaluable insights into their preferences and behaviors. This segmentation allows you to tailor your marketing efforts to specific audience segments to maximize engagement and conversion rates.

Looking Beyond Email

While email marketing remains a powerful tool in the marketer’s toolbox, it does have limitations. Only about half of your email recipients engage with email content, even though they most likely opted in to receive it. The 50% who do not engage are ripe for targeting with different tactics, such as advanced direct mail or text messages, providing you an opportunity to connect with audiences who may have otherwise been missed.

Targeting Businesses & Employees

To expand your reach and improve campaign effectiveness, you can target nearby businesses and their employees. Using geolocation technology, you can target mobile devices within office spaces and send them targeted digital ads. You can also send direct mail to nearby establishments to extend your audience.

Marketing to Your Competitors’ Customers

Another effective customer-targeting tactic is conquest marketing. Using the same geolocation technology referenced previously, you can detect and target patrons in your competitors’ locations, enticing them with tailored offers once they leave.

Segmenting Your Locations

Segmentation isn’t limited to customer data; it extends to the market itself. By categorizing your store locations based on the demographics and behaviors of their customers, you may find similarities among your urban, rural, or suburban stores. For example, a haircutting business may find more young professionals who visit more frequently but spend less time per visit in its urban locations, while their suburban stores have more parents with children who come less frequently. Gaining this level of insight allows you to customize your creative and offer to your different audience types.

Elevating to More Advanced Customer Targeting Methods

Using the right customer targeting strategy can make all the difference. Let’s look at the various methods of targeting, from least advanced to most advanced.

Carrier Route

This is the most rudimentary form of targeting, which includes entire zip codes for broad reach.

Demographics

Adding another dimension to a carrier route, this allows you to tailor campaigns based on age, income, and other demographic factors.

Clusters/Groups

A more advanced segmentation method is utilizing tools like Prizm and Personix to categorize households into distinct groups. Examples include Upper Crust, Kids & Cul-de-sacs, and Urban Elders.

Custom Models/Propensity

The most advanced, and generally most effective, targeting is custom propensity models. These leverage predictive modeling to identify prospects who are most likely to respond to your offer.

Targeted marketing isn’t just a strategy; it’s a roadmap to your success in a competitive marketplace. By understanding your audience, leveraging data-driven insights, and adopting innovative customer targeting techniques, you can drastically increase your sales while spending less on marketing. Targeted mailing lists can help your campaign succeed.

Frequently Asked Questions About Customer Targeting

You have questions about customer targeting, and we have the answers. Read the following for the information you need.

Turn to Triadex for Your Customer Targeting

Triadex has extensive expertise in all levels of customer targeting. If you’re ready to begin taking more thoughtful control over your marketing efforts, we invite you to contact us today. Our business is the success of your business. Let’s get started.