In order for businesses to remain successful and relevant, it is important to understand their target audience and their needs. But before they can do that, they have to establish specific buying personas.
David M. Scott (Author of The New Rules of Marketing & PR) states “buyer persona is essentially a representative of a type of buyer that you have identified as having a specific interest in your organization or product or having a market problem that your product or service solves” (165). And an organization that does this well, is Target.
Target doesn’t just market to one big audience but multiple. Scott discusses that professionals “need to segment buyer personas so [they] can then develop marketing programs to reach each one” (165). And Target markets to several buying personas, specifically to connect with every single one- paying particular attention to buying personas like: families, expecting parents, young adults, athletic individuals and many more. But I’d like to focus on families, especially those who own a home, and young adults, specifically females. Targets seems to know a lot about these two buying personas, and does a good job at marketing to them in different but also similar ways.
PR professionals and marketers want to know their buying personas goals and aspirations but also their problems, and how they rely on products to solve them (166). So, to reach families, I would utilize email messages, Facebook, as well as Instagram, and blogs. But when marketing to younger females, I would use more than Facebook, Instagram and blogs, but Snapchat, Cartwheel (a Target application) and even Pinterest. These types of apps and social media channels can help professionals connect to individuals, and then create new marketing strategies and content that caters to each person based on their search and purchase history.
Images found on Target.com and Google.
Research from The New Rules of Marketing & PR: How to Use Social Media, Online Video, Mobile Applications, Blogs, News Releases, and Viral Marketing to Reach Buyers Directly, 5th Edition, by David M. Scott.
PUBLISHED BY Channing Hertel- COMM 3370: Social Media in Public Relations