Nearly 2.1 billion people have social media accounts across the globe. Of that number, 1.6 billion have active mobile social accounts. These large figures are the main reason why social media advertising revenue is estimated to reach $8.4 billion this year.

The fact that there are billions of social media users out there is the very reason why platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter have established specific targeting options within their advertising managers. There are different ways to target depending on what type of campaign you are running but in this post including focusing on just couple thousand specific people , we’ll specifically talk about campaigns that offer specific pieces of content within the B2B space.

Effective targeting is exactly how campaigns optimize spend and increase conversion rates.

When creating a custom audience or manually inputting targeting options into any given social platform, you should already have the answers to these three questions about your target market:

WHO ARE THEY?

Get to know the target by using buyer personas and customer journeys. These tools should offer an extensive amount of information about the people who you are trying to target. What type of company does your target market represent and how will the product or services you are marketing benefit them? On average, how old is your target? Are they mostly male or female? These basic questions go a long way within targeting.

Whatever you do, do NOT go into targeting with a half guess in the back of your head. General information is good but you want to be as specific as possible. Creating an audience with hundreds of thousands of people may look appealing at first but remember that this is B2B marketing, not B2C marketing. The shotgun approach just isn’t as effective when you are trying to reach specific individuals.

WHERE ARE THEY?

This is the second most important question to ask. Not only should you know where the target is geographically, but you should also know where the target is by their position within a company. Are you targeting someone in the C-Suite or the front desk manager? There is a big difference there.

General information is good but you want to know the specifics about these people. Ask yourself this, “Who is going to be the main decision maker for who I am trying to target?” It can vary in B2B marketing depending on what is being offered towards any given industry.

If you’re targeting the wrong person within a company, you could be wasting your time. Even though your content is reaching people associated with your target market, it could all be falling on deaf ears if the person who is seeing it isn’t the ultimate decision maker. Find out who the decision makers are within the industry you are targeting and where they stand within the company.

WHAT ARE THEIR INTERESTS AND BEHAVIORS?

Here you can fine tune targeting with a few added bonuses. Based off of what you have found in your research and what is included in the buyer persona, you can add interests and behaviors that your target is most associated with. That is a huge reason why social media advertising has become so effective.

One of the biggest reasons why someone activates and maintains a social media account is to follow their interests and display their behavioral patterns. Social media platforms capture this data! If you know what the target likes and what they do, you can reach them exactly where they are looking. This is how you full proof your targeting and fill in any gaps that you may have missed down the road.

Overall, effective targeting is one sure fire way to optimize ad spend and increase conversions. It can be a trial and error process at times but it is definitely something that can be fine-tuned throughout a campaign’s existence. If you aren’t seeing results, then go back and study the buyer persona some more. There is always something more you can do.

Much success,

Looking for more great reads? Check out these related articles:

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• Will Whitepapers Soon Lead all Other Categories in B2B Marketing?
• 3 Key Differences in Strategy of B2B Marketing vs. B2C Marketing
• What are the Top B2B Marketing Challenges This Year?
• What Kind of Team Should You Assemble for Content Creation in your B2B Company?
• Why Your Business Should Practice Social B2B Marketing
• Improving Your B2B Lead Generation with Inbound Marketing
• B2B Marketing: Managing the Customer Lifecycle
• B2B Marketing; Focus on One-on-One Customer Relationships