Leads and conversions are key to business growth and success. All companies strive to achieve higher profits, but some struggle to find new ways to achieve their objectives. In this article we discuss why targeting customers during key life events can lead to leads, conversions and increased customer engagement.
Life events
Life events are the most significant things that happen during a person’s life. Getting a new job, buying a house, getting married, having children, buying a car, changing career, travelling, and anything else that entails a big decision is a life event. During changing times like these people seek advice, compare multiple brands and ultimately spend more money than they would in normal circumstances.
A study by Royal Mail Data Services showed that 55% of businesses understand the concept of life event marketing and the fact it leads to conversions. However, the same 55% also stated that their company was yet to implement a firm marketing strategy that targets life events.
Get to know your target audience
Great brands know that different products and services meet the needs of different demographics. This means that you should target unique demographics when promoting your most profitable products or services. Each segment of your demographic target face their own challenges, experiences and life events. For this reason, you will need to create content aimed specifically at each segment of your target audience.{{cta(‘bcfbfeff-1f37-446e-ba29-6dcd0155aaec’)}}
It is important to establish exactly who you are targeting in order to understand their needs, problems and life events. Once you fully understand your audience, you can decide how your product or service will resolve their issues and assist with their life events.
When researching your target audience consider their age, gender, location, occupation, income level, relationship or family status, behaviour, values, personality type, pain points, the kinds of media they use and anything else you feel that may be useful to your marketing plan.
To gather your data, speak to your most experienced members of staff who have interacted with customers on a regular basis. Sales teams, for example, often know customers well and deal with them directly. It is also a good idea to do a little research yourself. Can you find any articles that discuss your target audience? Can you conduct a survey or a focus group? The Census Bureau always has useful stats and information about different sections of the population.
It is also important to set up a good CRM system. There are many fantastic systems available that will store and organise your contact database. You will be able to track the habits and behaviours of your customers and predict how future customers will interact with your brand.
Targeting life events
Once you have done plenty of research and established who your demographic is, you will be able to market your brand as a solution to your target audience’s concerns and life events. Today it’s not enough to simply convince your customers that your product or service is great. Marketing is so competitive that companies need to go the extra mile.
Life events give you the opportunity to interact with your audience in a meaningful way. You can create interesting and emotive content surrounding a life event, as well as provide practical solutions to any problems that the customer may encounter.
Our favourite examples
Rock My Wedding is a brand that provide anything a couple may need to tie the knot. Their Facebook page is a great example of life event marketing. They post about real weddings, telling personal and emotive stories that are highly likely to engage the target audience.
Tepilo specialise in selling residential properties. Their fantastic blog advises landlords and property owners about the important steps they should take with their new property ventures. They advise on everything – from selling and buying, to converting and building new properties. This is a great example of content marketing that offers practical advice and support for the target audience as they make big decisions.
Tesco is a great example of a company that does not necessarily target life events, but it still produces content that targets customer life events. The Tesco Baby Club, for example, is a useful hub of information that new parents can use.
Finally, another great example of content marketing is Monster’s CV template. It is a practical tool that job seekers can use as they take the next step in their professional career.
Finally…
Targeting your audience during key life events with engaging content will at the very least allow you to connect with your audience and gather valuable insight. However, if you do it well, it is also highly likely that your shiny new data will lead to conversions.
If you can target life events, make sure you do and open up new doors for your company.
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