Automotive Online Marketing Essentials: Target Markets vs. Buyer Personas

Automotive online marketing is essential. It’s not just a way to reach new customers, it’s how you drive long-lasting word of mouth business. When potential customers go online to do research about their automotive problems, your business should be right there in front of them to make an impression of professionalism and trustworthiness. But how? 

Target Market is a term used to gather a broad generalization about the kind of people who might be interested in your automotive services. Target Markets have a wide reach, but often don’t work with very specific needs or local industry quirks. More recently, marketing companies have been using Buyer Personas, which are more detailed and can ensure that your automotive business reaches your ideal clients. Let’s take a look at the differences between them, and how they can benefit your business.

Target Markets for Automotive Businesses

An automotive Target Market would include basic demographic information like common age, gender, and income levels for your ideal customers. Because a Target Market is trying to use a very general set of characteristics to describe your potential customers as a whole, they tend to have limited information. Marketing campaigns can use this information to try and reach people who are more likely to become customers, without spending time and money reaching people who are unlikely to become customers.

{{cta(‘ca7e73b3-fdf0-47e2-88f6-51878cf54c78′,’justifycenter’)}}This helps you know where to advertise and how to use marketing materials, but what it doesn’t do is define what kind of marketing is going to address their problems in a way that they find trustworthy and convincing, setting your automotive business apart from the competition.

Automotive Buyer Personas & Online Marketing

Buyer Personas are the upgraded, more detailed version of Target Markets. A marketing company will develop multiple Personas for your automotive business, and each will describe a customer in greater detail. Buyer Personas include information like occupation, day-to-day habits, pain points and goals, and common objectives. They describe a full person so that your online marketing materials can better target your ideal automotive customers.

For instance, it might make sense to use language like, “Cheap,” or, “Quick and Easy,” for a general automotive audience, but say you’re trying to get more exotic car clients; those car owners might not respond as favorably as others to the same language. 

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Buyer Personas inform everything from how you write blog posts and develop website content to where and when to target your paid campaigns. With a detailed Persona, you can access the consumer empathy required to bring potential customers into your business’ brand narrative, establish yourself as a trustworthy partner, and drive repeat business. They are extremely powerful for automotive businesses, and it’s important to work with a marketing company who develops detailed Personas with you.

Thanks for reading our breakdown of Target Markets and Buyer Personas for your automotive business. Are you looking to grow your business through online automotive marketing? Get in touch today!