If the Shoe Fits: Understanding How to Target an Audience — GVSU PRSSA – Grand Valley State University Chapter of the Public Relations Society of America

Targeting your audience comes down to knowing your product, service, or client. The only way to achieve success in promotions is by identifying exactly who this promotion would serve best. Being precise in targeting your audience may seem quite daunting, seeing that the success of your campaign is affected greatly by it. However, don’t fret. It is possible to target your audience by simply using your imagination and possibly the most unrelated item to this idea imaginable: shoes. Yes, you read correctly, shoes. The best strategy I have learned about targeting my audience that has yet to fail me is to “imagine what type of shoes your product (service or client) would wear,” a tip given by Julie Lankes of Boxboom Creative, who visited my Fundamentals of Advertising class this January.

Here comes the hard part: Imagining those shoes is difficult at first, as it should be. Giving human characteristics to an inanimate object is hard. The key to this is brand perception and the reputation of what you are promoting. This can be gained through research on their website, customer reviews, mission statement of the company, and social media responses of the promoted good. Once you have established the “type of shoe” that this product would wear, it then becomes much easier to segment and target your audience based on characteristics of customers who would wear said shoe.

Let’s walk through the process together. Think of the Tesla Model X. If a Tesla could wear a shoe, what kind of a shoe would it be? Seeing that Teslas are a higher end automotive model, it is only fitting that shoe would match, so possibly a nice leather dress shoe or a high-end brand high heel? Yeah, that sounds about right. Now, who would wear such a shoe? You might figure this would be someone with a more disposable income, meaning they most likely have a steady and successful career and that they must be a few years out of college at the youngest. These are the main demographics of our audience. Psychographics are more inference-based in the sense that Tesla is a technologically advanced and eco-friendly automotive company. Therefore, our psychographics could be those of someone who is tech-savvy and green friendly.

Now to check that this is all true, try and picture this customer. If you can imagine the customer wearing the shoes you have initially thought of, your shoe strategy was successful. If not, have your product try on other shoes; it never hurts to keep browsing to find the perfect pair.

About Amandari

Amandari Karaca is a junior at Grand Valley State majoring in Advertising and Public Relations with an emphasis in Public Relations and a minor in Spanish. Amandari is the Vice President of Fundraising for Grand Valley’s Rock Against Rape, an Account Associate for Grand PR and a member of Sigma Kappa Sorority. Amandari loves to travel, discover the newest food trends, listen to different styles of hip-hop music and cheer on the San Antonio Spurs amongst other NBA teams.