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

Successful companies understand the desires and needs of their customers and offer content tailored accordingly. To gain this understanding, conducting a target audience analysis is recommended. In this article, we present different methods of target audience analysis and show you how to combine them effectively.

The Importance of a Professional Target Audience Analysis

A target audience analysis is essential for any company. Whether you are building your business or already running a successful one – you should always keep your target audiences in mind. People and business strategies change. Therefore, the target audience analysis needs to be conducted regularly and compared with previous results.

If you are just starting out, defining your target audience should be a priority. Who is your ideal customer? Are you aiming to engage a specific type of customer, or do you want to build your company to appeal to a variety of customer types? Describe your ideal customer. Defining an ideal customer doesn't mean excluding potential customers who might also be interested in your products/services. Rather, this approach allows you to tailor your communication more effectively from the start and align your content with your target audience.

If you are already running a business and want to ensure you offer the best possible content to your prospects and customers, you should determine whether you are reaching your target audience or appealing to other groups with your content.

A target audience analysis specifically conducted to find targeted content is divided into the following three steps:

• Step 1: Data Collection

• Step 2: Evaluation

• Step 3: Generating Ideas

Data Collection is the Starting Point of Any Target Audience Analysis

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

If you do not yet have any data available, other options are available. In addition to a market analysis, you could, for example, directly survey your website visitors. If your website is still under development, conduct these surveys 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.

Initially, it's important to find out the "hard facts," such as demographic data like gender, age, social environment, location, life situation, and basic interests or income. Try clustering here. The required information depends on your business. For instance, if location and/or income are irrelevant to your business model, you can omit these. In the case of a brick-and-mortar store with an online shop, the location plays a much larger role than for a pure online shop.

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

Evaluation

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

Determining Customer Types with the Limbic Map

The Limbic Map is considered the leading approach for neuropsychological audience segmentation. This approach was developed by the certified psychologist Hans-Georg Häusel in the late 1990s. With the Limbic Map, every purchasing behavior can be explained, and customers can be categorized based on their value system and character.

The Limbic Map focuses on the premise that humanity, alongside basic needs like sleep, nourishment, and sexuality, is primarily driven by the following three impulses: Stimulation, Dominance, and Balance. These constitute the three primary motives for human action. Dominance encompasses growth, status, power, and control. From Stimulation arise curiosity, the pursuit of rewards, and the desire for novelty. In Balance, the desire for security, stability, and order, as well as risk assessment and cost/benefit analysis, are manifested.

Fig. 1: The Limbic Map; Group Nymphenburg

Depending on the product and personality differences, these three primary motives vary in intensity. Since a person's personality is, according to current research, 50% innate and 50% influenced by their social environment, theoretically, a multitude of specific customer types emerge. Häusel specifically identifies the following seven customer types:

• Balance + Discipline/Control = Traditionalist

  • Main Focus Balance = Harmonizer

  • Balance + Stimulation = Open-minded

  • Main Focus Stimulation = Hedonist

  • Stimulation + 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 audience. Here, customers are often categorized based on attributes like gender, age, and income. This categorization overlooks the actual lifestyle. For example, a 60-year-old DAX CEO leads a different life and holds different values than a 60-year-old artist. While the DAX CEO is likely more of a Traditionalist, Performer, or Disciplined individual, the artist is more likely to have a degree of Hedonism or an open approach. Furthermore, the Limbic Map system is not just a theoretical thought model but is based on extensive real-world 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 any convergence.

Identifying Customer Desires with the Empathy Map

With the help of the Limbic Map, you can identify which customer types you are already targeting or wish to target. To more precisely determine the specific desires and individual needs of your target audiences, the Empathy Map is suitable.

The advantage of the Empathy Map is that it encompasses significant areas like social environment and daily life, hopes, concerns, and desires. This allows you to form important hypotheses about your target audience and develop a concrete profile. To clearly identify customer needs within a defined thematic area, you should ask and answer the following six questions:

• What does the target person feel and think?: What is really important to them? What moves them? What worries them? What are their desires?

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

  • What does the target person say and do?: What are they involved in? Do they really put plans into action? Who do they influence?

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

  • What fears and frustrations are present?: What obstacles must they overcome to achieve their goals? What negative outcomes do they fear? What desires and goals does the target person have? What motivates them?: What do they truly want to achieve and why?

Fig. 2: The Empathy Map; Own Representation

Depending on the character, the answers will vary. An adventurer will have different goals than a disciplined individual. The traditionalist fears different consequences than the open-minded. Therefore, try to create a separate map for each type relevant to you. Once you finish this step, you'll have a very precise idea of your desired or existing target audience.

Generating Ideas

Once you have a clear picture of your target audience, you can begin creating content specifically for them. The first step is to define whether you want to build reach or increase your sales. Once the goal is defined, determine who the content is specifically aimed at. Emotionally driven customers, like Harmonizers, Adventurers, and Hedonists, should be addressed on an emotional level. More rationally inclined people (Open-minded, Performers, and Disciplined) require logical arguments to make or want to make decisions. After answering these two questions, locate your target audience accordingly. If you must cater to diverse audiences, try to find commonalities or focus on the most promising target audience.

Fig. 3: Content-Approach Matrix; Own Representation

With this categorization, you know how to best address the relevant target audience with the type of content and approach the content creation systematically. If your goal is brand awareness and your target audience needs an emotional appeal, then create entertaining content. Such content could include podcasts, image galleries, online surveys, and quizzes. If your target audience is more rationally inclined, then you should focus on educational content like step-by-step guides, infographics, and online courses. However, if the purchase aspect is the focus, you need content that has a stimulating effect (e.g., case studies, testimonials). Whitepapers, online presentations, and list articles are ideal if you plan to convince rationally inclined people to purchase. Consider this classification as a guideline. With some creativity, you can format any content to be successful in all categories.

What We Can Do for You

You already have an online business or are just about to start one? However, you are struggling to precisely determine your target audience and offer suitable content? We support you with professional audience analysis, work with you to develop an editorial plan, and create the required content if desired. If you have difficulty collecting and evaluating the necessary data, we also offer professional support here. Contact us.