From Jersey Shore to Corporate Corridor: Adapting Marketing Strategies Across NJ Markets

Whether you’re a business owner, brand manager, or entrepreneur, getting to know your target audience is non-negotiable. Shockingly, over 50% of small to medium-sized businesses are unfamiliar with who their target audience is, let alone how to connect with them. Yet, 50-70% of poor, ineffective marketing strategies can be traced back to not knowing (or misunderstanding) your target audience. While looking for ways to set your company apart, have you considered who you’re even trying to impress?

New Jersey is home to over 9.5 million residents, 95% of whom own a computer or smartphone. As a business owner, there is extreme value in understanding what online marketing New Jersey residents respond to. The first step? Dissecting various buyer personas you aim to connect with in the vast NJ market.

Uncovering Your Brand’s Buyer Persona

A buyer persona is a semi-fictional character strategically created based on real-time company findings. In other words, a buyer persona can closely resemble a potential customer of your company, and by uncovering every intricate detail of this character, you can improve your marketing and outreach tactics. For example, if your company primarily sells dishware, it is counterproductive to sell to the masses and not directly to your target audience. Remember, a wider audience does not equal more sales.

Considering the previous example, if you owned a dishware company, you’d sell mostly to homeowners, renters, homemakers, and food enthusiasts. Sure, everyone could benefit from your dishware, but too broad marketing tends to wash out and get lost in the mix. Targeting one specific buyer persona ensures customers feel as if you are speaking directly to them, and this is how connections are built.

The goal is to learn everything about your buyer persona, such as:

• Demographics (Age, Gender, Location, Income, Education)
• Values & Interests
• Lifestyle
• Buying Habits
• Motivators
• Pain Points
• Goals

Still unsure who your target audience is?
Contact Let’s B Media, a digital marketing agency in NJ, for assistance in researching your brand audience and uncovering unique buyer personas.

I’ve Created Buyer Personas, Now What?

Now that you have established a solid foundation and can clearly grasp who it is you are marketing to, the time to determine where to find your target audience has come. With new social platforms emerging regularly, it is imperative to strategize marketing efforts to maximize customer reach and limit ad-spend waste. The costliest (and most ineffective) marketing tactic is sharing the same content across all platforms.

Here are the top three reasons why:

1. Platforms serve different purposes.

Just as you can change your tone of voice, your brand can change tone without ever losing its voice. Platforms like LinkedIn and Facebook are great for sharing educational content and community events, whereas TikTok is ideal for quick, spontaneous entertainment. Each platform serves a purpose: to educate, entertain, build connections, problem-solve, or inspire.

• Audiences vary per platform.

The Chief Executive Officer of a company is less likely to refresh a news feed ten times a day and will often turn to search engines and blogs to gather insight on products and services. On the opposite end of the spectrum, students or young audiences might do just that and check social media frequently to ensure they stay updated on the latest trends and viral videos. That’s not to say CEOs aren’t on Instagram or TikTok, but the post content itself would vary based on the audience you aim to market to.

• Limited ability to test and track conversions.

By posting the same generalized content across all platforms without curating it uniquely for one specific buyer persona or target audience, the ability to track what works and what doesn’t is nearly impossible. Digital marketing, as well as traditional marketing, is meant to be tested, analyzed, and adjusted. Without A/B testing, click-rate comparisons, and persona-based measurable metrics, reliable tracking of the true effectiveness of your marketing efforts cannot be properly executed.

What to Share and Where

As a digital design and marketing agency in NJ, countless hours of research have been poured into what to share and where. And while the quest for the latest insight never ceases, we’ve compiled a general guide for platform selection, content type, and tone for general business posts. Keep in mind that this is just a small compilation of what to post regularly on currently popular social media platforms and is separate from full service digital marketing. Explore our more detailed reference of the top 7 digital marketing avenues for online marketing New Jersey audiences here.

Jump back to the previous example of a business selling dishware and think of post options that fit each platform and tone. Of course, each post will vary slightly based on the demographic of the buyer persona, but it becomes a less daunting task to target specific audiences when you know the language you’re attempting to speak. If there is one thing to know about social media, it is that users are quick to spot and call out a brand that is trying too hard, and in today’s digital age, reputation is everything.

Adapting Marketing Strategies Across NJ Markets

The greatest marketing concept to grasp also happens to be the most challenging. The goal isn’t to be everywhere at once; it’s to be precisely where your target audience is. For a digital marketing agency in NJ to connect with audiences all over New Jersey, various buyer personas must be created and tailored to north, central, and south NJ, considering each individual customer.

For instance, an NYC businesswoman living in northern NJ typically doesn’t have the same pain points or buying habits as a stay-at-home mom living in southern NJ, and your marketing efforts must acknowledge and reflect these differences. While both audiences share a busy lifestyle, their attention will not be captured in the same way. Media buying, geotargeting, and retargeting ads are punchy enough to stop the fast-paced executive on the move and steal a second of their precious time and undivided focus. However, for the task-juggling toddler mom, a strategically placed OTT ad on a streaming service, child-focused blog content, or an authentic mom rant on TikTok would likely resonate deeper.

To connect most effectively with custom buyer personas, there are three important components to consider:

1. The same visuals don’t align with everyone.

Audiences respond differently to color palettes, layouts, typography, animations, and more. Using the same visuals across all platforms isn’t boosting brand identity; it’s limiting customer connection. Bold, kinetic typography holds just as much value as a soft, clean aesthetic. Remember, it’s not about what you like but what your audience responds to.

• CTAs can make or break a sale.

Calls-to-action are designed to seal the deal. “Buy Now” might work great for that no-nonsense, on-the-go CEO, but could completely turn off the hesitant, emotion-based buyer. Knowing the purchasing habits of various target audiences will set your CTAs apart, validating customer conversion and eliminating objections.

• Every post must serve a purpose.

Whether optimizing voice search or laying down a building block of brand trust, everything you post should have a clear intention behind it. While it’s okay to hop on board the latest trend, it’s best to avoid designing every post around what the rest of the world is up to. Instead, educate, solve a problem, or spark desire… just be sure it’s geared toward turning viewers into buyers.

How to Track NJ Marketing Success

Accurately tracking digital marketing efforts requires expertise in the field. Much like an investment portfolio, diversity is the ultimate key to long-term business growth and success, but knowing when to hold, invest more, or modify an existing strategy is the element that sets a lucrative company apart. Although marketing to the masses may seem like the simpler solution, tracking the success of hyper-focused marketing campaigns is, in fact, easier and substantially more precise.

Oddly enough, companies often learn that marketing campaigns aimed at one demographic do surprisingly well targeting an additional unexpected group. This is a perfect example of why gaining this knowledge is the golden ticket to mastering your marketing technique. However, this valuable insight can only be discovered by evaluating your audience under a fine-tuned marketing microscope, experimenting with various approaches, and accurately recording and tracking results.

When to Hire a Full Service Digital Marketing Agency in NJ

Digital marketing methods are constantly shifting, and business owners unwilling to navigate new avenues will slowly lose their spotlight as alternative companies explore new, innovative marketing techniques. Full service digital marketing encompasses every piece of the puzzle, from revealing a brand’s exclusive target audience to speaking their language fluently in your upcoming marketing campaign. Whether you seek to build better connections with your customers or optimize the outcome of your next product launch, connecting with a design and marketing agency in NJ can ensure that your brand not only adapts to the vast NJ market but also successfully tracks an upward trajectory in your company’s marketing success.

Quick Recap: Research reveals that not knowing (or misunderstanding) your intended audience is the reason behind over half of a company’s unsuccessful marketing efforts.
Don’t get so caught up in staying relevant that you forget to be relatable or neglect building valuable relationships.
From Jersey Shore to NJ corporate corridors, develop a brand that stands out from the competition at first introduction.
After all, first impressions are everything.