Marketing targeting: from definition to method

Along with upstream segmentation and downstream positioning, marketing targeting is at the heart of any marketing management strategy, whether BtoB or BtoC.

How do you know which target prospects and customers to address? What criteria should be used to determine the best strategy for reaching your core target? How do you define your marketing target?

Essential to successful prospecting and an efficient lead generation process, proper segmentation and clear marketing targeting are real weapons of mass conversion.

This article, co-written with Anthony Rochand, consultant, trainer andco-founder of LEW, takes a closer look.

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What is marketing targeting?

Marketing targeting is the technique of selecting one market segment rather than another on which to focus communication and marketing efforts.

Following on from the segmentation stage, it enables us to address one or more categories of customers, prospects, influencers, distributors or investors very precisely, to boost marketing effectiveness.

When the targeted segment corresponds to your ideal customer, we speak of your core target.

💡 Marketing targeting therefore involves :

• selecting the segments with the greatest affinity with your product or service;
• identifying target expectations that your offer can meet,
• personalize your interactions with your core target.

Targeting criteria in marketing

It would actually be more accurate to speak of segmentation criteria, rather than targeting criteria. In fact, the choice of criteria makes it possible to divide a given population into homogeneous segments (segmentation stage), whereas the targeting stage consists of selecting a segment.

An all-in-one prospecting solution can help you with this task. Easybusiness, for example, enables you to target high-potential companies for your customer acquisition and engagement operations, thanks to its B2B database.

It offers 60 criteria for identifying your targets and new prospecting markets, as well as an assessment of your business potential by geographical sector.

Once you've identified and qualified your targets, you can also use software like lead with IP tracking technology.

This enables you to identify them when they visit your site anonymously, observe their browsing behavior to categorize them, refine your target, and even detect new audiences whose potential you may not have been aware of.

Types of targeting in marketing

What are the different types of targeting?

• Behavioral targeting. This is based on data collected on the behavior of visitors browsing your website, or interacting with advertisements:
  • pages visited,
  • click-through rates,
  • average length of visit,
  • traffic origin,
  • behavior, etc.

In particular, Webmecanik offers RGPD-compliant behavioral targeting functionality.

Thanks to the analysis of various data, you can better understand your prospects and customers, and automatically trigger personalized marketing and communication actions.

The many features of this French marketing automation software, based on Mautic technology, enable you to analyze and track your visitors, to generate qualified leads and convert them.

• Retargeting. Thanks to cookies on your site, you can track your visitors once they've left, and automatically offer them advertising on other sites, based on what they've visited.

These two digital marketing targeting techniques are particularly effective for online campaigns.

• Segment targeting. This involves choosing a segment (sometimes several) on which to focus marketing efforts, adapting the message to suit the individual.

Examples of marketing targets

Looking for an example of a marketing target to define your own? Here are a few ideas to help you think:

• Example n°1: you offer room rentals → find out which companies need to organize an event in the medium term and where ;
• Example n°2: you're a web agency → you could target companies in the middle of a fund-raising campaign to propose a website redesign;
• Example 3: you sell human resources management software → target HR managers in companies with more than 15 employees;
• Example n°4: you sell childcare products → target women aged between 25 and 35, etc.

Marketing targeting and its benefits

• 💸 stop wasting time and money on low-potential segments, where your offer is unsuitable or too competitive ;
• 🌟 attract more qualified prospects through personalized marketing and communication actions;
• 🤓 gain relevance and efficiency by tailoring your approach to each identified segment;
• 🤝 detect new business opportunities and consumer trends by regularly reviewing your targeting ;
• 🎁 adapt your offer to always better meet your target's needs.

Segmentation, targeting, positioning: the winning trio

What's the difference between segmentation and targeting?

Segmentation is the stage prior to marketing targeting, a pre-selection of sorts. It involves identifying homogeneous subsets or segments of the population.

This method enables you to obtain a precise, qualified profile of each category of people, to better group their behaviors and interests, and to obtain a clear vision of your potential audiences.

The marketing positioning strategy

What about marketing positioning? This is the last stage after segmentation and targeting. You've broken down the market into segments to define the prospects to whom you want to address your offer, then you've chosen one or more target segments that are potentially interested and accessible.

All that's left to do is position your offer, particularly in terms of price or range, to set yourself apart from the competition.

How to define a marketing target in 5 steps?

Step ¹: Know your offer

The first step in getting to know your target is to fully understand your product or service offering.

Digging deeper into your offer can provide you with some interesting insights, such as :

• your target market (B2B or B2C),
• the problems your offer can solve,
• who can benefit from it,
• how the offer is positioned in relation to the competition,
• who is willing to buy, etc.

Step ²: Collect and exploit customer data

The quality of your segmentation and targeting will depend on the diversity and relevance of your data- but that's not all!

Just as important is your ability to exploit it intelligently and make the information speak for itself.

The more data you have, the more you can adapt your communication, whether in terms of the channel used, the tone chosen or the type of content to propose.

Hubspot's Hub Marketing is a unified platform that includes all the tools you need for effective inbound marketing.

Automatically collect and centralize all types of data on your prospects (page views, social network interactions, downloaded content) and create segments in just a few clicks.

You'll then be able to offer them personalized content in a targeted way, and automatically trigger the sending of emails when an action is taken.

Step ³: Audience segmentation

How do you find the most relevant target? Start by segmenting your audience using :

• socio-demographic criteria (gender, age, CSP),
• geographic criteria (home, workplace),
• psychographic criteria (buying habits, interests), etc.

For your BtoB prospecting and lead generation strategy, you can use more specific characteristics such as :

• criteria based on company profile (type of company, sales, workforce, investments, projects, news),
• criteria according to a decision-maker profile (training and level of qualification, career path, development within the company, current events).

🤓 Here are a few tips on how to create a relevant segmentation:

• don't use all the criteria to create your segments;
• the profiles of each segment must be as homogeneous as possible;
• each segment must be clearly differentiated from the others;
• they must be measurable, exploitable (reasonable competition, few obstacles) and offer identified growth and sales prospects.

Step ⁴: Choose your targeting strategy

There are many elements to consider when choosing your strategy, from researching your target to your current position in the market, and possibly adapting your offer or message to suit your objectives.

Here are the three main targeting strategies, to be selected or combined, varying the marketing mix and the size of the audience to be reached:

• mass marketing: a single marketing mix for a very broad, unqualified target;
• differentiated marketing: at least two different marketing mixes are proposed, to reach two different target segments, known as differentiated targeting;
• concentration marketing, including :
  • Niche marketing (very small segment, but homogeneous in its expectations),
  • customization marketing (very demanding targets requiring a high degree of personalization).

Step ⁵: Define your marketing persona

Defining a marketing persona involves creating a detailed, fictitious portrait of your ideal customer, based on the information you have at your disposal. Personalizing your core target as much as possible makes it easier to personalize your message.

Looking for inspiration? Use our persona marketing template! Download our freepersona marketingtemplate:

Here are the criteria that are usually included:

• surname, first name, age,
• family and professional situation,
• expectations, problems encountered, obstacles,
• interests, hobbies, passions,
• preferred channels of communication and purchase,
• any disincentives to purchase, etc.

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Target, reach, refine... do it again!

Are your first campaigns starting to bear fruit? Good, because that means you're on the right track and have succeeded in reaching your targets and converting a few prospects into customers.

Now, if you want to continue developing your business, you need to continue gathering and analyzing information to enrich your database and get to know your core target even better.

This will enable you to meet their needs (and even anticipate them), and maximize their satisfaction, turning them into loyal customers.

And what about you? What are your marketing targeting tricks?