Continuous Consumer Change – Is 2021 The End Of The Target Market?

SEO has been, is, and will be the primary means of digital conversion. You don’t need to be a marketing guru to know that.

In fact, professionals and amateurs alike understand the long-term, high-converting power of search engine optimization. To the extent that most online businesses set up and collect on campaigns on a near-equal footing. 

McKinsey recently reported how marketers need to move far from their SEO comfort zones. We can no longer depend on a particular target because the face and needs of the consumer are constantly changing. Trending products and services might experience a few weeks of immense growth before shrinking out of existence as consumer interest shifts. The future marketer needs to be a sociologist and psychologist, as well as understand the growing number of available marketing channels.

What is also apparent is how markets must now be continuously tested, thanks to the speed at which consumer needs are changing. Where we used to test every few months, we now need to look at consumer habits over much shorter terms.

And we need to add to this complex complications of algorithm-fueled search results that bring consumer-personalised results based on location, previous queries, and interests. What has become extremely clear is that finding customers can no longer depend on a handful of campaigns. 

New marketing means evolving to the needs of the consumer. And it cannot be stressed enough that these needs are constantly shifting. Future competition isn’t just to do with taking over the clients of direct competitors, it has to do with understanding the consumers of our non-direct competitors, too. And continuously changing the face of your business to attract both. And changing the products and services on offer.

Until recently, brand loyalty had a lot to do with a fixed service, a fixed product, and a fixed customer journey. Long-standing and recognised names took the majority of custom; newcomers had to navigate a long and winding road to get the same recognition.

Today, newcomers that go with the flow of trends and use psychology to create consumer trust can surpass the results of long-term, traditional competitors. The buzzwords of 2020 and 2021 – transparency and authority – are turning the marketing tables on their heads. The openness of our public is also part of this wave – never before has a consumer been more open to listening to both sides of the story, or comparing the authority of lesser-knowns against that of traditional sources of information. Startups make it big because they understand this modern flow of change and take full advantage of it.

They also implement lesser-known marketing services and strategies to bring SEO into the current environment. These services concentrate on the movement of one specific channel and use undiluted expertise to get the required results.

Etsy Geeks, for example, provides a single-channel marketing service for sellers on one of the world’s biggest online marketplaces. It promises to increase etsy sales – and only Etsy sales – for store owners. As algorithm-driven personalisation has upset SEO basics (as well as Google ads and other paid listing services), focusing on a single platform has huge benefits.

One can find Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter aficionados that do the same thing. Because to claim knowledge of every social media platform or every online marketplace immediately raises suspicion – the complex world of internal SEO makes it almost impossible to be an expert on multiple networks.

This approach also works according to consumer psychology. Every Etsy store owner or every social media profile owner has some knowledge of their chosen network. They are themselves semi-experts; they are more likely to opt for a business that focuses all its attention on one channel rather than promising an all-in-one marketing solution for every channel.

One would expect this new requirement for single-service expertise would make it hard for small businesses with very small marketing departments to keep up. However, the opposite is true; a huge array of freelance professionals allows them to mix and match. Today, most small to medium businesses work with multiple agencies or freelancers, each of whom focuses on one to two marketing channels. There is no one-size-fits-all. Thanks to the continuous changes in consumer behaviour and platforms that cater to them.

Another lesser-known marketing strategy increasingly used by professional marketing agencies is paid traffic.

A decade ago, paying for website visitors was looked upon with suspicion. Low conversion rates put many marketers off.

Yet today, paying for large numbers of new website visitors or social media likes, comments, and follows is big business. One can buy website traffic as an SEO strategy that heightens site popularity metrics (and SERP ranking). But this channel also offers an opportunity to test new, high-volume, changing targets. This fits in perfectly with modern marketing methods and goals.

As McKinsey makes plain, test marketing and morphing one’s business to match the needs of the consumer are part of our future. Yet finding the numbers to test new products, services, content, and design on can be difficult – especially for newly-emerging businesses.

It should be noted that, when you buy web traffic, you should never lose sight of other marketing channels. It is not a miracle worker. However, conversions are part of the package. And in the volumes offered by reputable web traffic providers, even low conversion rates offer results that are not to be sneezed at. Especially in terms of cost-per-conversion.

By incorporating these means to increase traffic to a specifically-designed landing page, there is an opportunity to test hundreds of thousands of real people. As a good traffic provider offers hundreds of niches, testing different consumer groups en-masse becomes possible for any business. And again, this method is cost-effective.

Furthermore, paying for website traffic is the only marketing strategy that doesn’t require significant input in terms of hours, energy, and investment. These savings can then be focused on the test results – the new target groups revealed through the continuous research and testing of new markets.

Strategies deemed grey hat in the past have similarly morphed to meet the needs of today’s consumer. Website traffic providers manage numerous websites, large and small, that gather visitors and visitor data. Without implementing the latest insights into consumer psychology, they would be unable to deliver the volumes of traffic they manage on a daily basis. The minds behind such services are single-service traffic-generation experts. Using this expertise to bump up one’s own visitor numbers has become part of the marketing budget of many successful profit and non-profit organisations.

Today, every user of connected devices has real and fake knowledge at their fingertips. Individual interests are nowhere near as limited as they were in the P.I (pre-Internet) years. As recently as ten years ago, we could predict target groups. Global pandemics, social media surges, and the growing up of generations used to immediate digital gratification have ended this trend. Today’s Internet user can comment on multiple topics and quote the sources. The modern website visitor is a world away from the TV generation, and it’s time to take this into account.

It’s time to loosen our tight target groups and test the broader market.