How to Understand Financial Audiences Without Actually Asking Them

How to answer the questions your finance audience is asking without asking them

Investments, credit cards, deposits, mortgages and home equities are all of the main categories that marketers target to assess their target audience’s product usage and preference. In doing so, they have better knowledge of their audience and can use this information to refine marketing tools and strategies.

Being direct about the questions can allow for more accurate answers since the audience asked will have a far better understanding of the question at hand. It saves time.

But this can also be somewhat intrusive, which could possibly lead to an undesired outcome. So that is where tools come in, where sites offer data and tools to provide that needed information. Different approaches can get put to the test, which can guarantee a more sustainable success path.

Data can be a guide

Even though every little bit can be of help to having a better understanding of your audience, some forms of data may be of more value than others. Knowing this means that companies can know what to look into more to refine what they are looking for and to target new audiences more effectively.

Assessing demographics like education levels, age, marital status, gender, socio-economic factors and location can be of help. This can provide marketers with the answers they are looking for regarding audience residences, preference in social media platforms, and individual customer needs.

Assessing first and third-party behavioural data through digital analytics tools can provide excellent insight into how the user landed on the website, and keywords used to track the product or service. Advertisements can also go beyond just being about further exposure and awareness by providing information on whether or not they are an effective tool to understand precisely what the customer is and isn’t looking for.

Understand which metrics matter

Whether your audience is online or offline, understanding it means that better approaches can be developed in targeting them. Data can be exceptionally broad in encompassing various factors, so this can act as an advantage tool to assess if the strategies used are effectively used in the correct target.

A great way to begin would be to outline the goals to be achieved regarding a specific campaign. This is so that the key metrics can be used to measure the level of efficiency. Though the end goal of any marketing strategy is to close the sale, every customer has a journey to be considered, known as touchpoints. By developing distinct content for these audiences at the various touchpoints along the journey to conversion, the company can find appealing and ideal ways to motivate customers through the process.

Common goals to be found with most companies would include factors like increasing engagement with the audience, increasing exposure and brand awareness of the company and getting more traffic and leads to online platforms and online content. Social efforts should be considered too, such as community building.

After this, the different key metrics can be used to indicate levels of success. By taking the key metrics and coupling them with the respective goal, companies can form targeted content and ads to get the desired outcome needed. Even if the company has inactive campaigns to track the key metrics, this information can still be used for any campaigns to launch in the future.

Use what’s already available

Going the online route is best for tracking, analysing and recording information. There are multiple online tools that companies can use to track targeting, sometimes at no cost.

Another added advantage to this is that every little detail can be reported, even in journeys when the sale was unsuccessful. Understanding algorithms and analytics can place companies in a far better space to understand their audience and make informed decisions.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a fantastic free tool to use to track targeted audiences. It’s a reliable source that can be depended on based on its quality data and detailed overview of site visitors. Using this tool means having access to loads of information and knowledge regarding behavioural patterns and demographics related to the user.

Again, demographics assist in providing immediate information regarding the user, such as age, interests, gender and more. By using the tool, the company can gain insight into what method the user had used to land on the site. Was it through social media, another site that’s been partnered with, a newsletter or any other credible source? In this way, marketers can have a valuable guide on knowing the platforms that are driving traffic to their content.

Evaluating behavioural patterns clearly shows how site users engage with the respective site. This can indicate insight that suggests what’s not working, what’s working or any added gaps that exist for further interaction. To achieve this kind of information, take a closer look at pages that attract the most views and dwell time, and the pages that bring about the most results. This doesn’t have to end there, as taking time out to look into pages with the least engagement can be of value to marketers. However, the focus should be aimed at any content that works to promote the brand and better the results.

Google Analytics / GA4 offers a feature that allows companies to analyse visitor devices when visiting the site. This can help evaluate content performance across various screen sizes.

Meta

For companies looking to find a social platform that hosts the largest data regarding audiences, then Facebook & Instagram’s parent company, Meta, is undoubtedly the platform to assess. Here are a few steps on how to go about finding your target audience:

• On the Facebook Business page, navigate to the Page Insight section.
• Click on “People and Posts” to find more information about the respective audience and content results.
• If an advertising budget is available, “Facebook Audience Insights” provide filtered options to reveal more valuable information.
• Once the correct information has been collected, the audience can then be saved and used for marketing purposes.
• There is a visible option to “Boost Post”; however, it is highly recommended to instead create ads within the Ads Manager interface, which allows much better targeting to reach the ideal audience.

Twitter

Personal and professional Twitter accounts all offer an analytics tool to track information related to the account. Here, data pertaining to demographics and behavioural patterns can be collected as the user engages with the tweets.

Using Twitter can be very useful in providing content that can be correctly interpreted by both beginners and experienced users. Convenient factors to consider include consumable segments, individual analytics related to posts, monthly summaries and much more. This offers easy tracking tools over a period of time and stores recent and past data that has not been looked into yet.

LinkedIn

There are three categories that marketers can look forward to which offer all sorts of information related to demographics and behavioural patterns. These include:

• Followers
• Updates
• Visitors

Marketers choosing to make use of the social platform need to be aware of the professional nature that LinkedIn maintains in providing details. It can be expected that information will be shared based on things like employment status, job function or company size. Despite this posing a more inflexible approach to collected data, there are better options available to users that choose to advertise through detailed filter options.

In conclusion

With so many options for marketers to explore, there are multiple angles that can be used to collect essential information to questions that don’t need to be asked directly. Setting realistic goals and understanding the motive behind each campaign can further refine the topics at hand.