Overview

Ready to take your campaigns to the next level? Looking for an effective way to help grow your business, generate revenue, and improve your overall ROI?

As marketers, we need to constantly be working to better understand our ideal prospects and tailor messaging to their needs. Through the ongoing practice of effective campaign targeting, marketing teams can improve the relevance of their campaigns and increase engagement.

In this blog, we’ll break down what campaign targeting is, why companies need it, and how to leverage marketing automation platforms to improve campaign targeting.

What is campaign targeting?

Campaign targeting allows companies to raise awareness for a product or service among a specific group of audiences that are a subset of their total addressable market.

Campaign targeting starts with defining “who” specifically is a good fit for what you are trying to promote rather than focusing on “what” the message is. A general email to your entire database probably won’t generate the results you desire. It’s like trying to hit the bullseye with a blindfold on when the “who” is not defined. Once you define your target audience and tailor your message specifically to them, you’ll be a lot more likely to hit that bullseye.

Common criteria that are typically used to help determine the ideal target audience for a marketing campaign include demographics, geographic location, interests, behaviors, and previous interactions with the company.

Why should companies seek to improve campaign targeting?

We all know that feeling of disappointment when an email campaign you’ve put a lot of effort into doesn’t generate the results you desired. Inboxes are filled with hundreds of emails daily and marketing teams face the challenge of finding a way to cut through the noise.

Companies can optimize their marketing efforts and increase the effectiveness of their campaigns by focusing on a specific target audience. Here are some additional ways campaign targeting can help your team:

• Increased relevance – Your education leads don’t want to be invited to your upcoming healthcare webinar. With a targeted approach, marketing teams can craft messages that are relevant and engaging to their desired audience.
• Lower costs – Audience targeting can help reduce marketing campaign costs by minimizing wasted resources on individuals who are unlikely to be interested. As a result, this can lead to a higher return on investment (ROI) for marketing efforts!
• Improved experience – By tailoring campaigns to specific audiences, companies can create a more personalized and positive experience for their leads.

When should companies focus on addressing it?

If your campaigns are consistently underperforming with low conversion rates and low engagement, then it may be time to look deeper into how to improve your targeting strategy.

“Why is no one signing up for our webinar?” Maybe you’re not sending the right message to the right audience. With a targeted approach, companies can eliminate the likelihood of this possibility and ensure better results.

Additionally, if a company is looking to expand its customer base or launch a new product or service, it is important to have a strong understanding of the target audience and how to reach them effectively.

Improving campaign targeting should be a priority to ensure that marketing efforts are driving engagement and conversions among the desired audience.

How should a company improve campaign targeting?

With emerging technologies and marketing automation platforms, campaign targeting is easier than ever before. There are several ways that a company can improve its campaign targeting strategy to increase the effectiveness of overall marketing efforts:

Conduct market research

Before launching a campaign, your team should conduct market research to understand your target audience’s needs, preferences, and behavior. This will help develop messaging that resonates with the audience and identify the channels through which they are most likely to engage.

Utilize segmentation

Segmentations are a powerful Marketo Engage feature of the Database toolkit that allows users to break their target audience into smaller groups based on specific characteristics, such as demographics or behavior. It allows marketing teams to serve personalized content in the same email to different people in the database based on which segment they align with.

Build lead nurtures

Marketo’s Engagement Programs allow you to create personalized nurture journeys for leads at scale. Common lead nurture strategies often segment leads based on where they fall in the marketing funnel to send relevant content based on prior interactions. Companies can also use retargeting nurtures to target individuals who have already interacted with their brand in some way, such as visiting their website or attending a webinar. This can help keep the brand top of mind and encourage them to take further action.

Data Standardization

Messy data can lead to endless business inefficiencies including ineffective campaign targeting. Before setting up segmentations and nurtures, we recommend aligning on a process for how to manage data standardization and lead enrichment. Putting some simple processes in place, such as a list import template with required fields and a list scrubbing checklist, will ensure that any data added to your systems have been vetted for cleanliness and accuracy.

Test and optimize

Companies should continually test and optimize their campaigns for better results. This includes testing different messaging and visuals to see what resonates best with their audience and adjusting their approach accordingly. A great way to test campaigns is through Marketo’s A/B testing feature which allows users to do 4 different types of tests including subject line, whole emails, from address, and date/time. Marketing teams can customize the test sample size to the desired percentage and select the appropriate winning criteria.

Successful campaign targeting requires a deep understanding of the target audience and a willingness to continually test and optimize campaigns to improve their effectiveness.

Who should manage campaign targeting?

Campaign targeting should be a collaborative effort that involves input and insights from various departments within the company including sales, product development, and customer success. This is because effective campaign targeting requires a deep understanding of the target audience and their needs, which can only be gained through a holistic view of the business.

Conclusion

The first step and often the most challenging part of this process is defining your target market. However, once the target market has been identified, you can leverage your marketing tech stack to take campaign targeting strategies to the next level. Stop wasting resources on uninterested eyeballs and instead help move potential customers down the marketing funnel with targeted campaigns.