What is the difference between traditional marketing and inbound marketing? Depending on the focus of each campaign, there are many differences, but there is one that is fundamental: specificity.
In most cases, traditional marketing has a fairly open idea of who its target audience is. It almost always has a very general definition that is limited to a basic demographic description. In that sense, traditional campaigns are like "shooting in the air and hoping to hit something."
Who hasn't been offered flyers on the street or received calls offering consumer mobile number database services that they are neither interested in nor have requested? How many SPAM emails do you receive every day? These ways of "increasing the public" for a certain product or service are annoying and ineffective because of the rejection they create in people. For every client they generate, they lose the attention of many other people.
Inbound marketing, on the other hand, works with incredible precision. Through a system for defining the target audience, it is possible to create profiles that are very close to reality in order to know exactly who each campaign should be directed at.
What does a target audience profile have?
Every company's market is undoubtedly very diverse. Depending on the variety of products or services you offer, the characteristics of your potential customers can vary greatly. But, in general, your company will have an idea of what your ideal customer is like and what the most important market segments are.
To dig deeper into this information, it is necessary to start looking for specifics that allow you to define who is really relevant to the business and who is not. Some of these details are:
Detailed demographic information: Gender, age, socioeconomic status, etc.
Personal background: Details of your work, occupations, hobbies or interests.
Identifiers: Way of speaking and relating to your company.
Goals, challenges and objectives: What are you concerned about? What are your goals and challenges?
Based on all this information, you will be able to build a fairly detailed profile. This in turn will allow you to focus your efforts on activities that will have better results. To put it simply: it is easier to sell something when you know exactly what your audience wants.
How to develop a target audience profile?
All the information you get from this research will have to come from your own audience. That's why the first step is to interview your customers. If they have already made the decision to do business with you, the information they give you will be valuable in getting new customers.
You can also review your company's database to discover trends or recurring aspects. For example, you can find out if most of the people in your database come from an urban area or what the most commonly used form of contact is, etc.
Finally, you should talk to your company's sales team to find out what types of clients they handle and their characteristics. Ultimately, they are the ones who know the client best and will be able to provide you with proven information.
By the end of your research, you'll have a wealth of infor