You’ve heard it before, but it’s important enough to repeat:  When you market to everyone, you market to no one. In our previous post, “3 Things You’re Doing Wrong with Facebook Ads,” we talked about why failing to target your ads can lead to less-than-stellar results. One of the biggest factors that decides whether your Facebook ads will perform great or terribly is the audience you choose to target. Before we dive a little deeper into targeting capabilities within Facebook, let’s talk about who’s going to see these ads.

When marketing your business, all the content you put out needs to be targeted, in my opinion. How many people you’ll target will depend on your business, and to reach all your targeted users, you may need to create several advertising pieces with diverse messaging to make sure your content resonates with them.

I call these groups our Perfect Customer Groups, or PCGs. These are the people, whether they are familiar with your business or not, who love the things you sell. They’re people who are easy to work with. When they leave your store, you smile and think, “I wish all my customers were like that customer.” They’re loyal, booking appointments to shop at your store, or coming in anytime they need something new for their home, closet, pet, or a gift. They might be a “sneezer” who spreads the word about your store to all their friends and always bring someone new in.

Do you know who your PCGs are? Can you think of an actual customer? Hopefully you can, because I want you to think of that person while you read this post and while you set up future marketing pieces and ads.

If you haven’t figured out your perfect customer yet, pause and take a moment to define them. Where do they live and work? How old are they? Do they have kids or pets? What are their hobbies? What keeps them up at night? What do they Google? What magazines, books or blogs do they read? These are just a few of the questions I ask marketers to research and fill out in the Customer Profiling Worksheet found in our Facebook and Instagram Ads Course and within Social Edge.

I cannot express how important knowing who your PCGs are and what drives them to shop is to your marketing and growth of your business. Failing to recognize your PCGs can make the difference between open for business and closed for good. We live in a digital world where it’s incredibly easy for businesses to get in front of today’s consumer. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy to get them to buy from you.

Seeing your ads are one thing, while acting on them is another, especially when users are being inundated by ads from your competition. Creating content – including social posts, emails, commercials, newspaper and radio ads, billboards and –  that appeals to your PCGs will help your brand stand out to the consumer, increasing the chances that they choose you over the competition.

Your business may have one core customer group or have more varied products that many types of customers buy. Sit down and identify how many groups your business has, and create an example customer to represent each group. This real, or fictional, person should have a name and personality, and possibly even a photo! Create as complete a profile for this person as possible. When you’re writing any kind of customer-facing content, you’ll write to this person or these people.

Alright, do you have your PCGs in mind? Have you created, named and written a profile for your sample customers? Ready to start connecting with them online and building a relationship? Heck yes you are! The next step is figuring out where to find these people.

With print marketing, it’s much harder to target a very specific group of people than it is using online tools. For this reason, we’re going to focus on Facebook and Instagram ads here.

Let’s say you’re a jeweler. You’ve done your homework and you’ve identified a perfect customer you call Jennifer. Jennifer loves fashion, accessorizing, follows fashion bloggers and influencers and loves being on-trend. She also loves to travel and decorate her home. She’s a girly-girl who loves pink, loud colors, lipstick and bling. She’s 36 and makes $75,000/year as a marketing director for a small boutique firm run by women and lives within 10 miles of your store. Knowing more about Jennifer helps us create content for her, and makes it easier to find her through ads.

Here’s an example from Elizabeth Cole Jewelry. They’ve done a great job with their content, connecting with Jennifer.

The above example has a blend of content, some showing people, some showing products in the “flat lay” position, one showcasing a stylish living room and one from beautiful Anegada in the British Virgin Islands. Jennifer would love to follow this brand because the content fits her personality and lifestyle.

So, how do we find Jennifer? We can plug some of her demographics in Facebook Ads, choosing women, 34-38 who live within 20 miles of your store, and have an interest in shopping and fashion, fashion accessories, jewelry and fashion blogs. Depending on the size of the audience group, this could be all you need. With the right image (or video) and copy, you may start to drive all sorts of Jennifers into your store. But if you try to advertise to this audience and the ad isn’t performing well, or the audience is large (over 150,000), you’ll want to add in some more details.

Let’s take it a step further to find Jennifer on Facebook and Instagram. In addition to all the demographics and interests listed above, lets also target brands that are similar to Elizabeth Cole Jewelry. Let’s pretend you carry this brand in your store, and you know Jennifer would love it. If Jennifer loves Elizabeth Cole, she’ll also love Elizabeth and James, Elke Kramer, Ella + Mila and Ella Moss, for example.

Because you’re a jeweler, you’re an expert and are familiar with these similar brands. But because my expertise is social media, I turned to my friend Google and typed in “brands similar to Elizabeth Cole.” From this search, I also learned that Anthropologie carries Elizabeth Cole. Anthropologie is a brand of its own, so it’s safe for me to assume that Jennifer may shop at Anthropologie as well.

Now, we take these brands over to Facebook Ads and plug them in under detailed targeting to see which how many fans follow them on Facebook and Instagram and if we can advertise to them. Of the brands above, I could advertise to fans of Ella Moss and Anthropologie.

Do you see how we’re tying it all together, learning who our perfect customer is, using content (image, video and/or copy) that resonates with that person, and creating incredibly targeted ads to reach our perfect customer?

We’ve done this with many retailers we work with at Crystal Media, and the results have been incredible. We’ve seen results like selling out of items in just two days and helping the store achieve their highest sales month in the store’s 15-year history. It’s been awesome to watch and be a part of. And we did it using the tactics in this article:

• We understood our clients’ PCGs
• We gave them direction on what kind of content to post to resonate with their PCGs
• We advertised to these people using detailed targeting
• We monitored the ads’ performance and made changes when we needed to

Excited by the opportunity to reach your PCGs today and drive them into your store… but don’t have much (or any) experience with Facebook Ads? Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered. Click here to learn more about our step-by-step training, “ Click Your Way to Customers: Facebook and Instagram Ads Training.

Tell me who your PCGs are! Comment below, and maybe I can help you zero in on them further. Or, list some content ideas that this article has helped you brainstorm for your social media and ads. I can’t wait to hear what you came up with!