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GetSmarter is a high-touch online education company that works together with top universities and industry experts to present short courses throughout South Africa. GetSmarter allows you to take part-time, university-quality courses, all from the comfort of your home or office and at your own learning pace. The courses are short – between six and sixteen weeks – and result in certificates from our partners, which include the University of Cape Town, Stellenbosch University and Random House Struik.

Internet tools – it’s all about the target market

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Businesses and marketers everywhere are rushing to put their brands online to capitalise on online marketing trends. Web tools like social networks, PPC and email have great appeal because they are affordable, customisable, measureable and wide ranging. At the same time, they are deceptive – because they seem so easy and cheap to use, many marketers dive in without planning their online strategy or thinking about the platforms they should be using. Like with any marketing endeavour, success only comes if you reach the right people in the right place and time. Failing to target marketing messages to specific consumer groups will only result in wasted budget, time and energy.

The group that you want to reach is your business’ target market – the people who your product or service is made for. You should define your target market in precise demographic detail – age, sex, location, income, race, religion and so on. Then you need to do some market research to discover what platforms these demographics use, and whether those platforms would be suitable and appropriate for your business.

No one would think of marketing a retirement home at a popular nightclub – in the same vein, it probably shouldn’t be marketed on certain social networks like Twitter, but could succeed through PPC advertising. A popular teenage jeans brand is ideally suited to Facebook and MXit, where trendsetting youths engage, but won’t do well on a network like LinkedIn or as an email campaign.

Since many of these tools are free, marketers may think there is no harm in adding it to the online marketing push. Unfortunately, this can harm a brand. Aside from wasting valuable working time and attention, it dilutes your online marketing messages, confuses customers and clutters your strategy. Using the wrong platforms can send a muddled message to your customers – after all, it “means” something specific to represent yourself on an online platform, the same way it does to appear in a certain publication or TV channel.

In addition, the more platforms you have, the harder it is to tailor unique messages to each one. And without tailored messages, most of what you say will not resonate with your target market. Every platform is suited to a specific style, tone and length of content – getting this wrong will make your brand look amateurish and will push away followers.

Finally, always keep in mind that most online platforms, especially the social ones, are not the best places for full-on promotional marketing and advertising. Your interaction should be about your target market – their opinions, questions and desires. Put your fans and followers in the spotlight and they may become brand evangelists, spreading news about you through word of mouth; blast them with neverending marketing messages and they’ll soon leave.

To learn more about the importance and power of social networks, consider the University of Cape Town Internet Marketing course starts on 14 November 2011. For more information contact Emma on 021 447 7565 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., or visit www.getsmarter.co.za

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