COM 227 (Campus) Public Relations

Target Audience

A target audience is the group of people who are most likely to be interested in your product, service, charity or campaign. They are the people who will connect with your cause, buy-in to your brand and care about what you are selling, or how the service you provide can impact their lives. Your audience has a set of characteristics or demographics that they share, they have similar behaviors and can be grouped by their personal preferences. Understanding your target audience is essential for business success. The better you understand your target market, the more impact you will generate with any marketing or PR campaign that you launch. Whether you are thinking about how to write a press release for an event, or you’re checking out the best marketing ideas for small business you need to know your target audience in detail. (Class:PR) To know your target audience you will need to research the various groupings and lifestyle data for each.

• How to Define a Target Audience -For Your Marketing Plans This link opens in a new window (from Envato, by Celine Roque)
• Target Audience: Identify Yours To Improve PR and Marketing This link opens in a new window (from Class:PR, by Gemma Clay)
• 3 Tips for Defining your Target Audience This link opens in a new window (from CPCommunications)

Who will be the audience for your media campaigns/messages? Once you identify (sometimes in conjunction with your client), who they desire to reach with their products/services/etc., you use the information below to conduct research on those potential audiences to best design appropriate messages/campaigns/etc. that will resonate with those groups.

Target Audience: Demographics & Psychographics

To find out more information about the types of people that would qualify as target audiences for your client's products/services/events/etc., you may begin by using some of these databases listed below. For an overview check out the FAQ: How do I find target market information for my product? linked below. As you learned in your course there are various elements of target audience or market segmentation and you will need to research each of those pieces to create messages to best connect with those audiences. The chart below outlines some of the geographic, demographic and psychographic categories of potential target audiences. Sometimes geographic descriptors are included as demographic. Likewise there are other categories not included in this diagram such as marital status or employment status. Behaviors might be broken out as their own category rather than considered psychographic. Behaviors include how people spend their time (ex: time spent on phone or watching TV/videos or on social media; shopping habits; etc.).

Statista

Statista is an easy-to-use database to search for statistics, quantitative data, infographics, and related information. For researching your target audience:

• Use keywords appropriate to your anticipated target audience or your client's product/service/event such as: Generation Z, Millennials; Generation Y; country music; etc.
• Be sure to click on the Source provided in the box to the right of each chart to find much more information and data from the actual source where Statista found their information  
• Examples:
  • This chart helps you identify which generations use which media channels to donate to charities/nonprofits which will help with your target audience for fundraising activities:

    

  • This chart demonstrates which advertising channels Gen Z women utilize to make purchasing decisions:

     

Mintel Academic

• You may Type in Search Box terms appropriate to your client's mission and/or to your anticipated audience
  • Example: 
  • Example: Charitable Contributions - Look at the report on marketing to affluent and high net worth consumers to understand that target audience obtaining donations
• Instead of using the Search Box, try clicking the "Demographics" tab to the right of the search box, and use the drop-down to select a demographic group such as "Gen Z (1995-2007)" or Women, for example.
• Select appropriate Reports
  • ExamplesThis link opens in a new window
    • Marketing to Affluent and NHW Consumers - US - March 2021 This link opens in a new window
    • Marketing to Generation Z - US - May 2021 This link opens in a new window
    • Marketing to Millennials - US - 2021 This link opens in a new window
    • Marketing to Gen X: Incl Impact of COVID-19 - US - July 2020 This link opens in a new window
    • Marketing to Baby Boomers - US - July 2019 This link opens in a new window
    • Marketing to Seniors: Incl Impact of COVID-19 - US - July 2020 This link opens in a new window
    • American Lifestyles - US - 2021 This link opens in a new window
• Click on Report title - two choices from here are:
  • Click on drop-down menu under Interactive Databook section to select a topic within report. (Ex: Social Media Associations). Then click "Go to Databook." This will take you directly to survey results in a graph format. Click on "Explore Demographics" above right of any given chart to see a further demographic breakdown (ex: gender) than the age group for the report.
  • Click on Databook under the Download section to download an excel spreadsheet
    • Scroll down list of questions - Click on appropriate ones. Look across spreadsheet to analyze responses under each category at the top 
    • This breaks down into gender, age, race, ethnicity, household income, US geographical area, etc.

WGSN

WGSN forecasts consumer, lifestyle and product design trends. They use a blend of global expert insights, data & analytics tools and cross-industry knowledge, to inform businesses of emerging trends. For lifestyle and target audience research, try using the Insight tab This link opens in a new window in the banner across the top of the interface. From there the Foresight This link opens in a new window, Generation This link opens in a new window, Lifestyle This link opens in a new window and Marketing This link opens in a new window tabs will provide drop-downs to select from to further refine your results.

Here is an example of the Generation drop-down menu from the WGSN Insight tab:

Esri Demographics

Tapestry Segmentation 

67 distinctive segments of the US population based on socioeconomic and demographic composition, further classified into LIfeMode and Urbanization groups.

• To begin, you might select one of the 14 "LifeMode Groups" which range from categories like "Affluent Estates" to GenXurban to Scholars and Patriots. 
• Click on the LIfeMode Group that might match your target audience
• You will be taken down the page to a table with that LifeMode group's description with several "segments" to the right of the description list allowing you to further narrow down the category.
• Click on a segment and a PDF will come up with descriptions Who are we?, Our Neighborhood, Socioeconomic Traits, Age by Sex, Race & Ethnicity, Income & Net Worth, Average Household Budget, Occupation by Earnings, and many other specifics on that particular population group to flesh out this target audience.

Example: Next Wave (Life Mode); Las Casas (Segment)
Cultural differences depict Las Casas, a family-oriented market distinguished by multigenerational households. Their spending reflects their children—baby food and furniture or children’s apparel—and convenience—fast food and family restaurants. Consumer choices also focus on personal style, as well as the latest trends and fashions. Although young and predominantly renters, this market is stable, affected more by immigration from abroad than local moves.

SRDS - Claritas 360

The Claritas 360 database is part of the SRDS database and has a steeper learning curve. The following FAQs are a good place to start:

SRDS - Claritas 360 sample search for COM227

Perhaps your COM227 clients will be trying to market to people to volunteer for their organization, so here is a sample search to learn about a potential audience who might volunteer and cross-tabulate it with their use of various social media platforms: 

1. Click SRDS in A-Z Database List
2. Click Claritas 360 in the banner across the top
3. Log In to Claritas 360
4. Click My 360
5. Click Profile Ranking Index
6. EXAMPLE:
   1. Search “Volunteer” in the search box, click the orange search button
   2. Click “Activities past 12 months Volunteer work…”
   3. Click Next
   4. Click the arrow next to Claritas Profiles
   5. Click Claritas Consumer Profiles 2021
   6. Click the arrow to left
   7. Scroll to Household Demographics and click the arrow
      1. Select Household Detailed Demographics
      2. Select desired demographics (Ex: Age ranges; Household Income levels; Race; Education levels; Employment; etc.)
   8. When finished, scroll down the list to click the arrow next to Telecommunications (Neilsen Scarborough), 2021
      1. Scroll down to select ones that mention social media platforms and all the Social Networking Sites – hours spent… choices
   9. Alternately, you can also choose Psychographics which entail all kinds of personal choices from preferences for purchasing various items; attitudes toward children; how the internet accessed on various devices makes one feel; etc.to compare with various household demographics or with Telecommunications preferences.
   10. Click Submit button when finished selecting parameters
   11. When the job is complete, click the top of the 3 boxes that appear, Report Output (Excel), to view and analyze the results

Instead of "volunteer" as your search, you may choose to search for other behaviors such as "contributed" or others relative to your client.

Use the second FAQ above to refine your search to a specific county in New Hampshire for clients within the state.