Market Segments – Defining an Audience for Video Advertising
Who are you talking to?
Video is a fantastic tool for conveying your message. The visual and auditory stimulation of such a medium means you can get some very nice cognitive response out of your audience; some of the most powerful advertising around. So if you are thinking about having a video made, the first question to be asked is, “What is my message?” And the second question should be, “Who am I trying to reach?” Unfortunately, I’ve seen too many advertisers skip the second question. They know their product and how fantastic it is and want to let everyone know about it, but forget to understand who they are talking to.
The tool of Market Segmenting
We we may pride ourselves in not having generalizations about the people around us, but the most successful businesses and advertisers do. Good marketers use a little tool called Market Segmenting which is pretty much generalizing groups of the population based on certain characteristics; all based on scientific research of course. To further understand the customers you wish to reach, you will need to segment your market into groups (such as age, gender, location) and then decide who you want to market to. It is perfectly fine to have more than one target market. Think of McDonald’s and the several markets they reach; families, urban, children.
Below is a list of general market segmentations; these are the groups of individuals you will need to study in order to find your target market. This list is not complete but it is a very fundamental list.
The Segmentation Bases:
- Geographic Segmentation – a group’s location
- Demographic Segmentation – a group’s general characteristics
- Sociocultural Segmentation – a group’s societal class and ethnic and cultural background
- Affective and Cognitive Segmentation – a group’ internal psychological characteristics
- Behavioral Segmentation – a group’s actions and expressions
- Combined Approaches – group segmentations that are combined together
Once you narrow down the type of customers you have or wish to have you are ready to select a Target Market or multiple target markets. As stated above with McDonald’s some products and services have such wide reach that they are able to select more than one target market. It all depends on the nature of your product. However, if you have a single product and are not a multi-national company with marketing teams, I suggest you stick with a single target market.
The Target Market
Armed with the knowledge of your Target Market, you now know who to market your product to. It’s almost as if you have created an ideal customer. We like to call this a Customer Profile (to be discussed in a future post). Knowing your ideal customer you know who to sell your product to, how to sell it, where to sell it and maybe even alter your product to fit your target market if it needs adjustment. This extremely powerful knowledge allows you to command a much more competitive edge over your market space and how to design your message.
Bringing it back to Video
So, when seeking a video professional to produce your video you’ll need to let them know who your target audience is. Any good video professional will understand all the nuances of reaching your target market through creative means; the use of color, sound, images, emotional appeal, etc. are all helpful in reaching your ideal audience. The most successful video advertising campaigns rely on market segmenting. The more you understand your customer, the more easily you can communicate with them.