Integrated Marketing Plan

44 Target Audience

In the Personas chapter, we discussed personas and the importance of defining your target audience. A marketing plan may include one or more campaigns focused on one or more target segments. Some campaigns may focus on achieving specific goals for a single segment. Other campaigns may focus on a common set of goals using a variety of IMC activities targeting different segments.

Recall that there are four approaches to segment your market: demographic, geographic, psychographic, and behavioral segmentation. With your defined market and the inclusion of your primary and secondary research done, the next step is to incorporate it throughout the IMC plan.

Personas

Clearly defining the audience for IMC activities is an essential input. This is because different market segments use different types of media, and they may have other distinctive characteristics that impact the effectiveness of a communication method. Your decision about whether what tool to use in an IMC campaign should depend, in part, on what proportion of the target audience you can reach with this tool.

Understanding your target segment(s) and their communication and media habits will make a huge difference in your ability to design IMC plans to reach the people you want to reach. See below for an example of a persona called ‘Responsible Rebecca’.

A young white woman smiling at the camera.
Photo by Mark Cortney Cook from Unsplash
Sample Persona: Responsible Rebecca
Demographics Geographics Psychographics Behavioral
  • 26 years old
  • Female
  • Service sector/white collar
  • University education
  • $40,000 average household income
  • Part of the millennial demographic that represents 27% of the Canadian population overall.
  • Rents a one-room apartment near her old university campus in Metro Vancouver
  • Walking Distance to her job as a Manager of Apple Retail at Pacific Center
  • Easily located near organic grocery stores, natural health product stores, and vegan restaurants.
  • Her favorite activity is participating in outdoor activities, such as hiking, biking, traveling, etc
  • Sees herself as belonging to the Global Village (the phenomenon that describes a more connected world due in part to the advancement of technology)
  • Believes the internet helps her connect with other like-minded people
  • She is ESFJ type of people, extraordinarily caring, social, and popular. She is always eager to help.
  • Prefers organic products and grocery stores that offer sustainable, locally- sourced products.
  • Shops at natural health product stores
  • Willing to spend more time buying products that align with her progressive values and lifestyle.

Attribution

This page contains material taken from:

Heisz, A., & Richards, E. (2019, April 18). This article in the Economic Insights series examines the economic well-being of millennials by comparing their household balance sheets to those of previous generations of young Canadians. Retrieved from https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/11-626-x/11-626-x2019006-eng.htm

Lumen Learning. (2016). Determining IMC Objectives and Approach. Retrieved from https://courses.lumenlearning.com/marketing-spring2016/chapter/reading-determining-imc-objectives-and-approach/

Marshall McLuhan Predicts The Global Village. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://livinginternet.com/i/ii_mcluhan.htm

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An Open Guide to Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) Copyright © 2023 by Andrea Niosi and KPU Marketing 4201 Class of Summer 2020 is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

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