When it comes to any type of promotional effort that a company decides to utilize, the most important thing is for the company to know its target audience. However, according to more recent research, only around 40% of companies know even the basic demographic information about their target audiences, such as their location or gender. Additionally, according to this research, only around 30% of companies are familiar with the different types of digital communities that their consumers take part in, or the challenges and pain points that they are facing. Furthermore, less than half of companies truly know the hobbies and interests, and even the purchasing habits of their target audiences and only a quarter of them know which social causes their audience truly cares about. Not knowing all of these pieces of information about the target audience can be detrimental to companies and business operations because businesses end up missing out on different ways that they can connect with their target audiences, attract their attention, create engaging content for them, and in general, figure out different ways that they can meet their needs the right way. There are a couple of different obstacles that most companies face when they are trying to understand their target audiences, and in fact, despite the fact that most companies understand that it’s important to have high-quality data regarding their target audiences to be able to meet the needs of those consumers, over 50% of all companies are actually missing all of that important information.
Changes
One of the biggest obstacles that companies face when they are trying to generate more data and information on their target audiences so that they’ll be able to meet their needs in various effective ways is the evolving goals and different shifts with the target audience itself. In the last two years, the lives of consumers all over the world have dramatically changed due to the pandemic, and with other predicted events happening in the coming months, their purchasing habits, and their preferences are going to be likely to continue changing.
Data privacy
Another big obstacle that many companies face when it comes to learning more about their target audiences, in a way that will help the companies to meet the needs of their consumers in a more effective and even better way, is the latest changes to regulations in terms of data privacy. In fact, most of the data privacy regulations that have been introduced in the last few years have made it so that companies have a reduced access to all of the data that they need regarding their target audiences. Additionally, more and more consumers are a lot less trusting in the way that they choose to share their data with businesses. Both of these situations have resulted in companies missing out on vital information regarding their target audiences, from the way that they consume media, to their shopping habits, and even some of the basic demographic information that every company needs to have.
Article written by Ronn Torossian
