As a marketer, my biggest pet peeve is to come across a company that has no target audience. So, imagine my disappointment last week when I met a client for a marketing proposal.
“We cater to everyone.”
“Everyone?”
“Yes, everyone is our potential client.”
In the world of marketing, handling a wider audience is one of the biggest issues. You are targeting every age, every gender, and every language, so you need to stay relatable for all.
While this can mean countless targeting and marketing opportunities, this can also mean no laser-focused strategy, and your company bleeds a lot of budget.
So, Before you throw in the towel and think it is a lost cause, here are some unconventional ways to cater to a wider audience for your business.
Top 5 Tips to Help You Reach a Wider Audience
Inclusive Customer Support
Customer support is a great way to enhance customer loyalty and boost customer retention. Since customer support is an industry-standard, you need to stand out by mixing some marketing tactics with after-service.
For instance, Xfinity is an internet service provider with a predominantly English-speaking audience. However, since their target market is the USA, their customers have diverse backgrounds. To make sure their customers feel valued and heard, they offer their customer support in multiple languages. For example, a Spanish-speaking customer can learn about Xfinity Servicio al Cliente through the dedicated customer support numbers for Spanish speakers.
It is how brands can promote a positive brand image; it shows that the brand values and respects all individuals.
Diversity Marketing
When you hire people from all ages, ethnicities, religions, races, and cultures, you build a foundation for an inclusive brand. While this helps in understanding types of audiences, it also offers insight into cultural appropriateness.
This is the reason diversity castings and diversity hires are on the rise. Very recently, content-creating platforms have started using diversity marketing for their content. They cast actors, models, and singers to represent their target audience. When audiences see the representation of their culture, religion, and race in mainstream media, they feel valued.
Moreover, brands using inclusive and diverse marketing styles share content that addresses the pain points of the audience. This marketing style is ideal for organic reach and can help you significantly reduce your overall marketing budget.
Utilize Social Media
Every social media platform has a dominant audience. For instance, the dominant audience on TikTok consists of Gen Z. So, when the brand has to target a much younger demographic, they focus on TikTok marketing.
Similarly, the dominant audience on Instagram is millennials and Facebook has a dominant audience of boomers. To target a much wider audience, categorize your audience based on gender, age, interests, consumer behaviors, etc.
Now, you can post relatable content to grab the attention of the dominant audience. This is an ideal approach for utility-based brands.
Work With Affiliates
Working with affiliates is a great way to reach a wider audience. Since affiliate strategies are totally sales-driven, you will only be offering a small commission after a sale. Most brands filter out the affiliate websites and accounts based on their audience.
For instance, when you are targeting rich men and women, filter out websites and blogs that endorse high-end products, traveling, or expensive food. Repeat this strategy for all the audiences that you have categorized and this will help you improve your reach out to a wider audience.
Get Specific with Paid Ads
For paid marketing, keep your target audience narrow and only then, you will acquire a good return on investment. In a wider audience case, list down all potential customers’ personas and then start A/B testing. Make every campaign age and gender-focused.
Adjust the ad copy, change demographics, and even tax brackets. After you have designed at least 6-7 campaigns for each targeted audience, track the performance via analytics. Progress monitoring will eventually help you optimize the low-performing campaigns.
You can tweak your campaign for improvement or pause the campaign if it is not performing well.
Why Some Companies Have a Wider Audience?
Generally, brands have a very specific target audience. For instance, companies selling expensive makeup products would target rich women living in specific areas of the world. On the contrary, when you are offering a product that is considered an everyday utility product, it can have a much wider audience.
While paid campaigns with wider reach have a better reach, they do not offer a good ratio of engagement. This is where organic marketing can help you grow. The aforementioned tips will offer you an opportunity to improve your reach, bring better engagement, and improve ROI without breaking the bank.
