Audience marketing: the target of a successful strategy

By María Fernanda Aguirre

Published: 28 April 2025

With segmentation on the rise and positioning on the fall, the marketing audience becomes the focus of any marketing strategy, be it B2B or B2C.

So how do you identify the right target audience to address, what criteria can you use to determine the best marketing strategy for effective lead management, and will this ensure that you reach your ideal customer or buyer persona?

How do you capture the attention of new audiences for your company?

Essential for a successful prospecting and lead generation process, proper segmentation and content marketing are real weapons of mass conversion.

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What is audience marketing: example to understand it.

A marketing campaign today cannot do without segmentation, identification and positioning.

These methods of market analysis, followed by strategic decision making, have become indispensable for conquering and retaining potential customers, as they make it possible to create qualified segments to refine sales actions and achieve a better return on investment (ROI).

But what is the difference between segmentation and identification of the marketing public?

Definition of marketing audiences

The identification of the marketing audience (or target audience) consists of carefully selecting one target market segment over another, i.e. determining a priority group of people, in order to concentrate commercial marketing efforts on them.

This marketing technique makes it possible, among other things, to very precisely target one or more categories of customers, potential customers, influencers, distributors or investors in order to amplify marketing effectiveness.

Target audience and buyer persona: are they the same?

Differences between target audience and buyer persona

Although it often seems that the terms target audience and buyer persona are used interchangeably, the truth is that these two terms have important differences that need to be identified to ensure the proper management of your clientele.

In general, the target audience covers a broader population, of which you have some information, although not necessarily very detailed or precise.

The buyer persona, on the other hand, corresponds to the ideal customer profile that you want to target with your marketing strategy.

Illustrative example

Supposing you have a business selling yoga accessories in the city of Barcelona and you are thinking of expanding your product range. It is clear that you will need to know who will be potentially interested in buying them.

In this sense, you have:

target audience: women and men between 20 and 40 years old, who live in the city and whose interests and hobbies include physical and mental wellbeing.
buyer persona: Itziar, 32 years old. She has a Master's degree in Visual Arts, lives with two friends, has a cat. She likes to practice yoga in the afternoons after work and plans to go to India soon to follow an intensive course. In the last 5 years, she has changed her yoga mat twice.

Where does segmentation come in?

This is the preliminary stage to the identification of the marketing public, i.e. a kind of pre-selection.

This consists of identifying homogeneous subsets of a population of buyers or consumers, based on certain criteria, in order to obtain a precise buyer persona profile and better group their behaviour and interests.

What about positioning?

Positioning comes after segmentation and identification of the marketing audience, when you are looking to position your offer, particularly in terms of price or range, in order to differentiate yourself from the competition.

How to define your marketing audience?

Segmentation and targeting are the winning duo for B2B or B2C campaigns. To achieve a successful campaign, there are a few steps to follow.

1. Build a solid database

During the segmentation process, create the database that will allow you to target an audience of important people within your marketing strategy.

2. Define your qualification targets

Some players still believe that the larger the target segment, the higher the volume of potential sales.

However, focus more on targeting individuals rather than a heterogeneous group (a principle on which inbound marketing is based).

3. Analyse data and develop metrics

Focus on qualifying your audience and get a maximum return on investment (ROI) and a better engagement rate. When it comes to segmentation, more data analysis and customer insight is required.

4. Opt for one or more targeting strategies

Here are three identification strategies for you to combine according to your offer and objectives, varying the marketing mix (product or service, price, communication, distribution) and the size of the audience you want to reach:

mass marketing: a single marketing mix for a very large and unqualified target audience;
- differentiated marketing: at least two different marketing mixes are proposed, in order to reach two different target segments;
- concentrated marketing, which can be:
  - niche (very small segment but homogeneous in its expectations),
  - personalised (a very demanding target audience requiring a high degree of customisation).

5. Define your selection criteria

For your B2B prospecting and lead generation strategy, you can define your criteria:

According to the company's criteria:

type of company,
turnover,
investments,
projects and news (internationalisation, purchasing, etc.).

According to decision criteria:

personal biography,
training and level of education,
professional career,
development within the company,
hobbies and passions,
current affairs (appointments, promotions, etc.).

This highly personalised data helps you to produce a targeted pitch and offer with a much higher success rate than with other traditional prospecting approaches.

6. Develop high-tech marketing

Use lead management software based on data marketing and sales intelligence to optimise and centralise your customer relationship management.