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Family comes first.
Even when considering your marketing strategy.
In our previous blogs we have stressed the importance of understanding and getting to know who your target client is.
Understanding as much as humanly possible about your ideal client will mean you can get specific and tailor your marketing strategy - as we have alluded to before, casting the net too wide never works!
But first and foremost, you need to decide who your target client is.
And in addition to deciding who they are, there are a number of lifestyle factors to consider that will play a huge role in how you market to them.
One BIG one being their family set up.
Asking yourself, ‘does my ideal target client have a family and what does that family look like?’ is critical.
As a customer's family set up really does have an impact on what their wants, needs, and purchasing habits are like.
And when we say ‘family set up’, we are acknowledging that families come in all shapes and sizes.
So a one size fits all marketing approach will not work.
You’re going to need to do some digging.
And you might need to play a game of 101 questions (just kidding on the number - a few key questions will do!)
To name a few examples…
- What does your ideal target client's family set up look like?
- Are they single, cohabiting or married?
- Do they have children?
- What are the age ranges in their family?
- Where are they in their family life cycle?
By being clear on the type of family you are interested in targeting means that you can learn what matters to them; their values, their motivators, their wants and needs.
This way you can tailor your marketing strategy so it fits like a glove - resonating, appealing, and creating sales.
If you’re still not sold on how this extra bit of research could help your strategy, let’s zoom in on, for example, marital status.
Marital status can give vital intel into your customer, as people who are married or in long-term partnerships will often have noticeably different purchasing behaviours, especially when compared to consumers that are single.
And these different buying habits can be spotted when it comes to all sorts of products and services e.g. purchasing a car, financial products, holidays, and even entertainment.
But marital status isn’t the only tell-tale sign.
If your target client has children in their family, their purchasing habits will reflect that.
Having children also influences personal values, meaning what your customer once saw as important could drastically change.
You can also find more information on your target customer based on the size of their family.
For example, larger families with several children will often be interested in products and services that are low-cost and durable.
The size of a family, or a family's makeup, can be very telling, as when the family’s dynamic changes so does its needs and desires.
Family structure and the life stage of each family is important, and looking at the life cycle is something a lot of marketers do.
They will often categorise households in terms of what stage the family is at in their life cycle, as purchasing behaviours will be different in each stage.
By deciding from the get-go who your target client is and what their family looks like, you can build a clear picture of them, helping you understand what makes them tick and what they’re looking for - which will give your marketing strategy the best chance of success.
You can read our previous blog post on ‘Geography - Anatomy of a Target Client’.