With regards to advertising and marketing, nearly nothing is extra vital than figuring out your target market.

However what if I informed you over half of entrepreneurs are lacking essential data on their customers?

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

And, the info hole would not cease there:

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

• Solely 31% know the web 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 with regards to 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 largest challenges entrepreneurs face in getting the info they want and focus on some options to the disconnection entrepreneurs are seeing with their viewers.

The Greatest Challenges Entrepreneurs Face in Understanding Their Goal Viewers

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

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

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

1. New Information Privateness Measures

Information privateness rules are lowering entrepreneurs’ entry to the buyer knowledge they want. On the identical time, customers are much less trusting in sharing their private knowledge.

This leads to entrepreneurs lacking out on essential knowledge on their target market, from their purchasing and media consumption habits to their primary demographic data.

2. Evolving Viewers Targets

Customers’ 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 creating as knowledge privateness rules tighten and unprecedented occasions that change shopper conduct proceed.

So, what can entrepreneurs do now?

How Can Entrepreneurs Enhance Their Information Technique?

1. Collect First-Occasion Information

An ideal resolution to elevated knowledge privateness rules like Google’s deliberate phase-out of third-party cookies is gathering your individual first-party knowledge.

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

Since first-party knowledge comes straight out of your prospects, it provides high-quality insights about your viewers and lets you create a customized expertise for them.

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

Solely 27% of entrepreneurs say their advertising and marketing knowledge is totally built-in with their programs and instruments, and as we noticed earlier, knowledge not integrating nicely is a high problem for entrepreneurs attempting 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 selections. Then again, a single supply of fact provides a holistic view of your target market by connecting all the info factors you might 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 Contemporary

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

The pursuits, habits, and attitudes of your target market most likely 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, ensure your knowledge is frequently up to date to maintain a pulse in your prospects in real-time.

One more reason you want up-to-date data in your target market is so you possibly can pivot your advertising and marketing technique and messaging in response to the adjustments your prospects 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 yr. And 20% of entrepreneurs have already pivoted in 2022 as a consequence of a possible recession, so chances are high 2023 might be no totally different.

For sure, you want a plan for when issues go off target. When the subsequent unprecedented occasion or sudden problem arrives, will you might have the info you might want to adapt?

In a really perfect world, you’d have all the info factors you would ever need, however that isn’t at all times sensible. So let’s finish by having a look at which knowledge factors entrepreneurs say are most useful to have.

The Most Useful Varieties 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 all for shopping for.

Primary demographic data, buy historical past, and the web communities their target market is a part of are additionally helpful knowledge factors.

A Disaster of Connection

In case you’re realizing you could be lacking essential data 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 in regards to the challenges on the horizon and the way your organization can navigate them in our collection on The Disaster of Disconnection.