Are your target audiences narrow enough?

Defining your target audience is simple - from a surface-level view. When you begin to dig deeper, however, you may realize how difficult it really is to categorize buyer personas into a valuable demographic.

For example, a pharmaceutical manufacturer bringing a new heart medication to market may want to target general practitioners, cardiologists and perhaps even surgeons. Upon researching and developing each of these personas, the marketer will likely realize that these three specialists have less in common than it first appeared.

These physicians have wildly different educational backgrounds, daily working lives, salaries, reading habits and more. So rather than targeting each persona with the same advertising message, it may be more effective to narrow each vertical into its own audience and develop a target message for each.

If that seems like more work - it is. Marketers who want to see better results and get noticed in a crowded marketplace must focus on their messaging or risk going unnoticed.

Why physician advertising benefits from highly targeted messaging

Anyone marketing to doctors is working in a highly regulated space and it's often difficult to find the creative punch you need to develop an impactful advertising campaign. Narrowing your target audience to focus your efforts on the most profitable segment could help your brand create a message that sticks.

Marketing consultant Leah Berry reported that a narrow target audience benefits your return on investment. Rather than blasting your message onto any platform selling ad space, you'll be spending money only where you can expect results.

Historical data can help you decide how to position future messages. Marketing professional Murray Newlands, writing in Entrepreneur Magazine, noted that marketers should build from campaigns that worked well in the past. Starting with a previous campaign will help you develop a new idea more quickly - and narrowing the message further will help it resonate with your ideal reader.

Narrowing your target audience can help you develop a more effective advertising message.

Moving beyond the audience definition

In the world of medical marketing, products define the audience - and that makes the process a little easier. A new heart medication is probably of little interest to a neurosurgeon, for example. But the basic definition of an audience is only the beginning.

Once you understand who your target audience is on a surface level, it's time to dig a little deeper. Here's an example:

"A concise message targets your most valuable readers."

Let's say your target audience is cardiac surgeons, aged 30-65, who perform between 50 and 150 heart surgeries a year.

In this case, the target profession is already well-defined and it's unlikely that the age range will play much of a role in how the messaging is received. It's the last part of our audience definition that could use some more work.

If our new product is a digitalis preparation, a drug that increases the force of a patient's heartbeat, according to the American Heart Association, we'll want to specifically target surgeons who perform surgeries to correct atrial fibrillation.

With this narrowed audience definition, we can develop a more specific ad message.

Purchasing relevant media space

Once you've narrowed your audience, it's much easier to decide where to buy media. If we continue with the example above, we would want to publish our print ads in a peer-reviewed journal that a cardiac surgeon - who regularly treats atrial fibrillation - would regularly read.

Taking a multi-channel approach is still the best route forward because, armed with your narrowed audience definition, you can find relevant readers online and in print journals.

To learn more about how to reach your target audience in peer-reviewed journals and on expert-curated websites, visit elsmediakits.com.