Better Customer Engagement: Creating the Right Content with Perfect Target Audience Analysis

Successful companies understand the desires and needs of their customers and provide appropriately tailored content. To gain this knowledge, target audience analysis is advisable. In this article, we introduce various methods of target audience analysis and show you how to combine them.

The Importance of Professional Target Audience Analysis

Target audience analysis is essential for any company. Whether you are in the process of building a business or already managing a successful one, you should always keep an eye on your target audiences. People and business directions change. Therefore, target audience analysis must be conducted regularly and compared with previous analysis results.

If you are just starting out, defining your target audience is the priority. Who is your ideal customer? Do you want to target a specific type of customer, or do you want to structure your company to appeal to various customer types? Describe your desired customer. Defining an ideal customer does not mean excluding potential customers who may also be interested in your products/services. Rather, this approach gives you the opportunity to make your customer communication more focused from the start and tailor your content to suit your target audience.

If you are already running a business and want to ensure that you're offering your prospects and customers the best possible content, find out whether you are already reaching your desired target audience or if your content is appealing to other groups.

A target audience analysis aimed specifically at finding target-specific content involves the following three steps:

• Step 1: Data Collection

• Step 2: Evaluation

• Step 3: Deriving Ideas

Data Collection as the Starting Point of Any Target Audience Analysis

The better you know your audience, the easier it will be to captivate them. However, you need enough data about them to properly analyze your audience. Using web analytics tools like Google Analytics, AT Internet, and Webtrekk, you can learn more about your website visitors.

If no data is available yet, there are other options. Besides market analysis, you can directly survey your website visitors. If your site is still under construction, conduct this survey on platforms where you are already active (social media channels, forums, etc.) or set up a dedicated landing page for this purpose. Be creative here.

First, find out the "hard facts," such as demographic data like gender, age, social environment, location, life situation, and possibly basic interests, as well as income. Try to cluster these. The information needed depends on your business. For example, if location and/or income are irrelevant to your business model, then leave them out. For a physical store with an online shop, location is far more important than for a purely online shop.

Is there a group that is disproportionately represented (Male, Singles, aged 25 to 34 from North Rhine-Westphalia, earning between 40,000 and 60,000 Euros; Women, living in a partnership but not married, aged 35 to 44, living in a big city, earning between 20,000 and 40,000 Euros, etc.)?

Evaluation

To evaluate the collected data, the following two approaches are recommended: the Limbic Map and the Empathy Map. Both methods can be used individually or in combination. However, a combination is preferred to maximize potential.

Identifying Customer Types with the Limbic Map

The Limbic Map is considered the leading approach to neuropsychological target audience segmentation. This method was developed in the late 1990s by psychologist Hans-Georg Häusel. The Limbic Map can explain any buying behavior and categorize customers based on their value system and character.

The Limbic Map considers the basic assumption that, besides the fundamental needs of sleep, nourishment, and sexuality, humans are significantly influenced by the following three drives: Stimulance, Dominance, and Balance. These form the three basic motives for human action. Dominance covers areas like growth, status, power, and control. Stimulance leads to curiosity, desire for rewards, and a thirst for new experiences. Balance manifests in seeking security, stability, order, and assessing risks and cost/benefit.

Fig. 1: The Limbic Map; Nymphenburg Group

Depending on the product and personality differences, the three basic motives are expressed to varying degrees. Current research suggests that a person's personality is 50% innate and 50% influenced by their social environment, theoretically yielding many specific customer types. Häusel specifically identifies the following seven customer types:

• Balance + Discipline/Control = Traditionalist

  • Main focus Balance = Harmonizer

  • Balance + Stimulance = Open-minded

  • Main focus Stimulance = Hedonist

  • Stimulance + Dominance = Adventurer

  • Main focus Dominance = Performer

  • Balance and Dominance = Disciplined

The advantage of the Limbic Map is that it goes beyond a sociodemographic segmentation of the target group. Here, customers are often categorized by attributes such as gender, age, and income. However, this classification overlooks actual lifestyle. A 60-year-old DAX executive likely leads a different life and possesses a different value system than a 60-year-old artist. While the DAX executive is more likely to be a Traditionalist, Performer, or Disciplined, an artist is more likely associated with a degree of Hedonism or open-mindedness. Additionally, the Limbic Map system is not a theoretical construct but based on extensive real-life observation.

To categorize a customer into one of these areas, try to determine their ten most important values listed in the Limbic Map. Then, see if there's a noticeable centeredness.

Identifying Customer Wishes with the Empathy Map

With the help of the Limbic Map, you can find out which customer types you already address or want to address. To better determine the specific customer wishes and individual needs of your target groups, the Empathy Map is ideal.

The advantage of the Empathy Map is that it incorporates important areas such as social environment and everyday life, as well as hopes, fears, and wishes. This allows you to make important hypotheses about your target group and develop a concrete profile. To clearly identify customer needs in a related topic area, you should ask and answer the following six questions:

• What does the target person feel and think?: What is truly important to them? What moves them? What are their worries? What wishes do they have?

  • What does the target person see?: How do they perceive their environment? What does their immediate environment look like? Who are the most important people in their environment?

  • What does the target person say and do?: What occupies them? Do they implement resolutions? Whom do they influence?

  • What does the target person hear?: What does their environment say about their work, hobbies, etc.? What are the most important influencing factors? What specifically influences them?

  • What fears and frustrations are there?: What obstacles must they overcome to achieve their goal? What (negative) consequences do they fear?What wishes and goals does the target person have? What motivates them?: What do they really want to achieve, and why?

Fig. 2: The Empathy Map; Personal Representation

Depending on the character, the answers differ. An adventurer has different goals than, say, the Disciplined. The Traditionalist fears different consequences than the Open-minded. Therefore, try to create a separate card for each type that is relevant to you. Once you complete this step, you will have a very accurate idea of your desired or existing target audience.

Deriving Ideas

Once you have a clear view of your target audience, you can begin creating content. The first step is to define whether you want to build reach or increase your revenue. Once the goal is defined, you need to consider whom the content specifically targets. Emotionally driven customers, such as Harmonizers, Adventurers, and Hedonists, should be addressed on this level. Conversely, more rationally inclined people (Open-minded, Performers, and Disciplined) require logical arguments to make decisions. Once you have answered these two questions, place your target group in the appropriate position. If you cater to heterogeneous target groups (must), try either to find common ground or focus on the most promising target group.

Fig. 3: Content Approach Matrix; Personal Representation

With this categorization, you know how to best address the relevant target group with specific content and can systematically approach content creation. If your goal is brand awareness and your target group requires an emotional approach, create entertainment content. Such content could be podcasts, image galleries, online surveys, and quizzes. If your target group is more rational, you should focus on educational content like step-by-step guides, infographics, and online courses. If the purchase aspect is the focus, it requires content with a stimulating effect (testimonials, case studies, etc.). White papers, online presentations, and list articles are ideal if you want to convince rationally inclined people to buy. Consider this example classification only as a guideline. With a bit of creativity, you can design each format to be successfully applicable to all categories.

What We Can Do for You

Do you already have an online business, or are you just starting one? However, are you having trouble precisely determining your target audience and offering suitable content? We support you in professional target audience analysis, work with you to develop an editorial plan, and create the necessary content upon request. If you have trouble collecting and evaluating the necessary data, we also offer professional support. Contact us.