Introduction
- Understanding your target customer and focusing your efforts. In a crowded market, and with the economic pressures we’re facing in 2024, it’s essential to focus your efforts onto the right audience.
- Being in the right place for the right people. Understanding your audience means understanding where they are active. We’re talking consistency across all of the most relevant platforms for your business, which might be a bit different for all our readers!
- Emerging trends like AI, and how you can leverage this technology to your marketing advantage in 2024. The digital world moves fast, new trends pop up all the time, staying in the know isn’t just a good idea – it’s essential.
- Lastly, we will discuss how you can measure your marketing success in 2024. Relying solely on marketing tools is no longer sufficient, especially given the current challenges with attribution. Instead, businesses must leverage their own data to gain a true understanding of their marketing impact.
Your Target Customers
One of the biggest challenges for marketers in 2024 is still, surprisingly, correctly identifying your target audience. So many people are still skipping this vital step! This leads to vague messaging, ineffective targeting, and a forgettable brand. It’s like throwing darts blindfolded; sure, sometimes you’ll hit the board, but most of the time you’re going wide.
Let’s face it: the digital world is a crowded marketplace. To stand out, you need a laser-sharp focus. That focus starts with knowing who your ideal customer is inside and out. By precisely identifying your ideal customer, your brand can optimise messaging, allocate resources effectively, and enhance your marketing efficiency ratio (MER).
Before jumping into your marketing campaigns you should have a clear idea on the following:
- Who your ideal customer is. Think about demographics! This is the foundation everything else is built on.
- What they value. This would define your messaging and how you intend to build engagement. It might be as simple as the main problem you solve, or as complicated as the unique story your brand tells.
- And, where they spend their time online. This is what keeps your digital strategy focused, and your campaign quality up. Don’t let your marketing end up like Bilbo – “thin, sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread.”
Once you are clear on all of this, you can be so much more selective and relevant on where you focus your marketing efforts.
The Right Marketing For Your Audience
The big challenge a lot of marketers face isn’t just defining their audience, it’s making that definition actually useful. That’s where we come in! To save you some time and brain power, we’ve highlighted the best and most relevant marketing channels and strategies for 2024.
SEO (Search Engine Optimisation)
Ideal for most businesses, regardless of their target audience because of how many use cases there are for SEO. Most powerful at the bottom of the funnel.
SEO still remains a crucial tool for marketing success in 2024. Including it in your strategy is a no-brainer for most businesses – 80-90% of consumers utilise a search engine in their decision making process.
Whether it’s finding initial information, short listing their options, looking for reviews, or researching price points, people are online and active on Google (90% market share), Bing (4% market share), and a handful of other search engines like Yandex, Yahoo, and Baidu.
SEO enables you to approach multiple areas of the buying decision making process, but it’s most powerful at the bottom of the funnel when people are about to make a purchase. More on this in the next section!
And the best way to stay relevant on Search Engines in 2024?
Creating high-quality content that’s both informative and engaging is more important than ever. Google’s focus on E-E-A-T – Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness – means you need to establish yourself as a trusted authority in your industry.
SEM (Search Engine Marketing)
Suitable for businesses where the final decision can be made from a Search Engine. Focus on high-intent keywords.
You can’t talk about influencing the Search Engine Results Page (SERP) without considering search engine marketing, which is to say Google or Microsoft Ads. 65-70% of buying clicks go through Search Ads.
Just like with SEO, SEM is most powerful at the bottom of the funnel. To finish off that train of thought, that means it needs to be implemented at the point where people are about to make a purchase.
With downward economic pressure on small and medium businesses in 2024, your strategy needs to be more intelligent than ever.
To make the most out of your Search Ads in 2024…
You need to focus on high-intent keywords. This is relevant for any SERP focused strategy, and the key is to identify what types of search phrases people use when they are about to buy. This way, you can focus your attention at exactly the point where the most revenue is available to your business.
With Search Ads, you’re not just hoping people will find you; you’re strategically placing yourself right in their path.
Paid Social
Choose your platform wisely depending on your ideal customer. Spend time doing a couple of things well in 2024, rather than trying to be everywhere.
With most of Australia’s population active across Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, Pinterest, and YouTube, paid social campaigns provide an amazing opportunity to stay front of mind with your potential customers.
Where SEO & SEM focus on when your customers are searching for answers, Paid Social allows you to influence your customers the rest of the time. This is where your influence of the buying decision can go full circle, and you maximise your total MER.
Balancing your ideal customer with data privacy
Historically, paid social and your ideal customer profile went hand in hand. In 2024 you have to be a bit more reliant on machine learning and the platform’s direction – which is to say AI. Go too specific and your campaign won’t run, go too broad and it will waste your money.
The key in 2024 is to choose the most relevant channel for your target demographic and to spend the time making sure your ad content matches the platform whilst still influencing consumers.
Organic Social Media
Essential, but make sure you’re investing your time on the platforms where your ideal customers are, and create the type of content they consume.
Lastly, organic social media. It’s a powerful tool for businesses to take advantage of in 2024. Your organic content may be one of the things you leave to last, but it’s the thing you should do first. Organic content is what proves you’re a real business.
When people are trying to build confidence in a brand they want to see the social proof. This is where organic social comes in! It’s not a place for you to shill your goods, it’s a place to highlight your wins, and to pull back the curtains for your most engaged customers.
Regardless of what type of marketing suits your audience best, make sure you’re focusing on the right platform for them. Don’t try to be everywhere all at once – be focused, be relevant. In 2024 one of the key points is about being in the right place, and another is about communicating in a way that’s relevant to them.
Some Tips on Communicating To Your Audience (across campaigns)
To effectively communicate with your business’s target audience through SEO, Paid Media and Organic Social Media in 2024, it’s crucial to tailor your approach to each platform and speak their language.
SEO
When optimising for SEO, think about the questions and problems your target audience is trying to solve. Use clear, concise language in your content that directly addresses their needs and their search intent, whether they’re in the research phase or ready to make a purchase. Try to naturally incorporate keywords your audience is likely to search for, while avoiding “fluff” content and lengthy paragraphs. Offer solutions and answers to their questions and problems and ensure the information in your content is valuable and easily readable. SEO isn’t just about getting clicks; it’s about creating content that resonates with your audience and positions your brand as an authority and trusted resource.
Paid Media
Paid Media allows for precise targeting, so make sure your messaging speaks directly to the demographic you’re aiming for. For instance, a formal, benefit-focused tone might work best for professionals on LinkedIn, while a more casual and visually engaging approach would resonate better on Instagram. Tailor your ad creatives and copy to match the platform’s culture and the expectations of your audience, making them feel like you truly understand their needs.
Organic Social Media
On social media, authenticity is key. Use a tone that matches your brand’s personality but also aligns with the platform’s vibe. Engage in conversations, use relatable language and share content that feels personal and relevant. For example, on Twitter, be brief and witty, while on Facebook, storytelling can be more effective. Knowing how your audience communicates on each platform helps you connect more deeply and build a stronger relationship with them.
Emerging Technology
Using AI for Marketing in 2024
- Our Head of SEO has been working in marketing for over 15 years. He has a clear idea of when Gemini is right, when it’s wrong, and when it’s simply hallucinating. This means he’s been able to implement myriad ways generative AI can improve our processes, rather than confuse our outcomes.
- Our Head of Paid Media has over 10 years strategic marketing & media buying experience. She understands which AI functions in a platform can lead to vague, inaccurate campaigns, and which can maximise returns for our clients.
AI does have its uses. It is a powerful tool that can improve efficiency and campaign results. However, it needs to be used responsibly and by experienced marketers so that, when it is wrong, it is caught out before it wastes your marketing budget!
First Party Data
Data, data everywhere, and not a drop to analyse! With “privacy concerns” rife across the digital industry in 2024, useful data is becoming rarer by the day. Campaign attribution is more mystifying than it has been in years, and the information out of your platforms is vaguer than ever.
But if you can crack it, valuable data will be the key to gaining insights that drive real results. By analysing data, businesses can make informed decisions, optimise marketing strategies and improve ROI. Data-driven insights help identify what works and what doesn’t, allowing for continuous improvement and more personalised marketing efforts.
But how do you tap into this treasure trove?
In 2024 it’s important to understand that the most valuable data is that from your own business, not what comes from Google or Meta’s platforms. The best tools will be the ones that come directly out of your own business. Although Google Analytics can be useful for overall trends, it’s not as relevant as your own revenue data. Which brings us to the final part of today’s journey – measuring your success.
Measuring Marketing Success in 2024
If you can’t rely on the platforms to tell you what’s what, then who can you trust? You can trust your own business intelligence.
Measuring success in 2024 is about identifying correlations between your activity and your business results. In the current landscape, where privacy regulations heavily influence data visibility, the usual methods of measuring success are becoming less and less reliable. This is why businesses need to become more self-reliant and focused on the data at their fingertips.
Historically, we would have leaned into the results reported out of the platforms – what revenue did Meta Ads say it made last month, what about Google Ads, and what does Google Analytics have to say about that – but now, all of those platforms are less reliable. They sample and then model data instead of accurately reporting on what actually happened – it’s like an impressionist painting of a scene rather than a photo of reality.
So, in 2024 the emphasis is on your internal data. This means correctly gathering and identifying correlations between your marketing activity and your sales activity. Therefore, you need to have excellent record keeping when it comes to your sales data, enquiry data, and other operational metrics that could indicate marketing success.
It’s not just about generating leads – it’s about generating revenue. Then, it’s operating efficiently enough to see that profit margin grow!
In 2024, your marketing success is the balance across these things.
Conclusion
As we move into the final parts of 2024, digital marketing presents great opportunities for marketers who are agile, innovative, and responsible with their use of emerging technologies and business intelligence.
More than that, there are massive efficiencies to be gained over the coming months through careful planning around your target audiences and highest return segments. If you take the time to consider the above and implement it for your business this year, you’ll be reaping the rewards all through 2025.
As always, if you want to discuss how this might impact your business over the coming months, feel free to get in touch for a no-obligation consultation.
