With regards to advertising and marketing, virtually nothing is extra necessary than understanding your target market.

However what if I instructed you over half of entrepreneurs are lacking crucial info on their customers?

In our annual survey of over 1,200 entrepreneurs, we discovered that simply 42% know the essential demographic info of their target market, like their title, gender, and site.

And, the information hole would not cease there:

Lower than half of entrepreneurs know their viewers’s pursuits and hobbies, purchasing habits, the merchandise they’re curious about shopping for, their buy historical past, and the place they eat content material.

Solely 31% know the net communities their target market is part of and even much less know the challenges they’re dealing with.
Only one-fourth of entrepreneurs know the social causes their target market cares about – an enormous missed alternative on the subject of expressing your model’s values, particularly when advertising and marketing to Gen Z and Millennials.

So why are entrepreneurs having such a tough time getting these knowledge factors?

Let’s check out the most important challenges entrepreneurs face in getting the information they want and talk about some options to the disconnection entrepreneurs are seeing with their viewers.

The Largest Challenges Entrepreneurs Face in Understanding Their Goal Viewers

A whopping 82% of entrepreneurs say having high-quality knowledge on their target market is necessary to succeeding of their function – however greater than half of them say they’re lacking key info.

So why is it such a problem for entrepreneurs to get the information they want?

The most important challenges entrepreneurs face in understanding their goal boil down to 2 essential points:

1. New Information Privateness Measures

Information privateness laws are decreasing entrepreneurs’ entry to the patron knowledge they want. On the similar time, customers are much less trusting in sharing their private knowledge.

This leads to entrepreneurs lacking out on crucial knowledge on their target market, from their purchasing and media consumption habits to their fundamental demographic info.

2. Evolving Viewers Targets

Shoppers’ lives have modified drastically over the previous few years, and with a looming recession, their habits, attitudes, and preferences are more likely to proceed shifting rapidly.

The 2 challenges above are troublesome to beat as a result of they’re actively growing as knowledge privateness laws tighten and unprecedented occasions that change shopper habits proceed.

So, what can entrepreneurs do now?

How Can Entrepreneurs Enhance Their Information Technique?

1. Collect First-Occasion Information

An awesome answer to elevated knowledge privateness laws like Google’s deliberate phase-out of third-party cookies is gathering your individual first-party knowledge.

First-party knowledge will be collected from many sources – your web site, surveys, electronic mail, SMS, your CRM, and extra.

Since first-party knowledge comes immediately out of your clients, it provides high-quality insights about your viewers and permits you to create a customized expertise for them.

2. Use a Single Supply of Fact for Advertising and marketing Information

Solely 27% of entrepreneurs say their advertising and marketing knowledge is totally built-in with their methods and instruments, and as we noticed earlier, knowledge not integrating effectively is a prime problem for entrepreneurs making an attempt to grasp their target market.

Disconnected advertising and marketing knowledge is problematic since you don’t have the total context wanted to make data-driven choices. However, a single supply of fact provides a holistic view of your target market by connecting all the information factors you could have.

A single supply of fact additionally improves effectivity by making advertising and marketing knowledge extra simply accessible for entrepreneurs and their collaborators.

3. Maintain Your Information Recent

We talked about how customers’ lives are altering quickly and entrepreneurs want up-to-date knowledge as a way to sustain.

The pursuits, habits, and attitudes of your target market in all probability modified a number of instances over the course of the pandemic. And with a recession looming, your viewers will seemingly change once more – so no matter knowledge monitoring technique you utilize, make certain your knowledge is recurrently up to date to maintain a pulse in your clients in real-time.

Another excuse you want up-to-date info in your target market is so you may pivot your advertising and marketing technique and messaging in response to the adjustments your clients are experiencing.

Not solely did over half of entrepreneurs pivot in 2021, 83% of those that pivoted modified course 2-4 instances in a single 12 months. And 20% of entrepreneurs have already pivoted in 2022 because of a possible recession, so likelihood is 2023 will likely be no completely different.

Evidently, you want a plan for when issues go astray. When the following unprecedented occasion or surprising problem arrives, will you could have the information it is advisable to adapt?

In a great world, you’d have all the information factors you might ever need, however that isn’t at all times sensible. So let’s finish by looking at which knowledge factors entrepreneurs say are most useful to have.

The Most Useful Kinds of Viewers Goal Information

Entrepreneurs say the pursuits or hobbies of their target market is essentially the most useful knowledge level, carefully adopted by customers’ purchasing habits, the place they eat content material/media, and the merchandise they’re curious about shopping for.

Primary demographic info, buy historical past, and the net communities their target market is a part of are additionally worthwhile knowledge factors.

A Disaster of Connection

In case you’re realizing you is likely to be lacking crucial info in your target market, don’t fear, you aren’t alone.

Many companies are at present experiencing a Disaster of Disconnection, and it goes far past poor buyer knowledge. Learn extra concerning the challenges on the horizon and the way your organization can navigate them in our sequence on The Disaster of Disconnection.