Targeted Marketing can be interpreted at several levels.
For a large company, using demographics data can be helpful Targeted Marketing if they are sending out 1000's or 10's of thousand of flyers and understand what their costs and returns will be. For a smaller or small business, general demographics can be considered less than Targeted and even useless data.
Let me explain what I mean by less than Targeted.
In todays booming building industry, new homes and sub-divisions are being built by the 1000's. Older home areas are being rejuvenated with newer and more expensive homes/sub-divisions. In my city for example, several of the zip code areas contain homes from $80K to $500K. There are some areas that are high income level areas but the price range of homes can still vary from say $200K to $2M. You and I know that almost anyone can afford a $200K home with today's interest rates (4-1/2% adjustable with 2% cap over 30 years).
To get closer to the bottom line of where I'm heading: You need to establish a plan for what you mean by "Targeted Marketing".
Are you targeting homeowners that have decks or want them to purchase a dishwasher? How does demographics info help you. Would associating with deck builders help you more than sending out 1000 flyers for siding cleaner when the area has all brick homes?
An example in case: I like to drive around for my "Targeted Marketing" - I like to drive into subdivisions and get a feel for the type of homes, their ages, conditions and then plan my attack. A recent drive into a major sub-division revealed that even though there were a lot of high priced homes only a very small percentage had decks (1%) - because of the home designs. Also these same homes were all brick - can't sell siding cleaning to these people. All the driveways were clean, all the bricks were clean, all the roofs were clean. Over 350 homes and a blind or general marketing flyer would have been a waste of time & money. Instead, the marketing was concentrated on post cards that contained specific information on concrete and brick sealing. I knew this was a risk, as brick and concrete sealing are not very popular in this area.
The cost of post cards, postage and labor was about $350 or about $1 per home. 3% (or 11) of the "Targeted" mailing requested estimate(s) within 2 weeks of the mailing. Roughly 50% (5) were landed as customers with an average of $850 per customer for $4250 total. If you look at the estimating cost along with the initial drive-around and mailing, the total marketing cost was about $1100 or 26% of the revenue generated. This is not a range I want to be in with my marketing cost (I like to stay under 15%).
So my point is, without driving around the sub-division and establishing what I intended to target ahead of time, sending out a flyer with brick cleaning, deck restoration or siding cleaning would have been a waste of of about $300. Not saying I did much better, I'll continue to track this area and see if there are any residuals such as referrals. I normally would not have even targeted these homes after driving thru it, but I'm interested in seeing what the long term results will be. I followed up with a subsequent mailing of a general flyer and business card and received a few more calls and jobs and 1 referral, so the Marketing cost (%) is going down a bit, but it is still above my target.
OK now the real bottom line: Targeted Marketing can mean different things to different businesses. Understand what it means to your type of business and study what areas work the best for your type of work. Keep records, keep tracking and look for innovate approaches. Most of all, keep handing out your business card to anyone that will take one.
Happy Marketing!
