The ‘In-market’ audience illusion. Chasing active buyers is a race you can’t win.
The rise of digital marketing has made in-market audience targeting more sophisticated than ever. While this capability offers powerful opportunities, it’s crucial to understand its proper place in a comprehensive marketing strategy. Success lies not in choosing between in-market and broad reach, but in finding the right balance across channels for sustainable growth.
In short
- In-market audience targeting is powerful but represents a small audience segment
- Successful strategies combine both in-market and brand building
- Long-term brand building creates preference before purchase
- Cross-channel integration delivers superior results
- Data-driven audience insights enhance both tactical and brand campaigns
AUDIENCE DYNAMICS
Why future buyers deserve your attention now
According to the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute, only about 5% of potential customers are actively in the market at any given time. For durables like cars or appliances, this number drops even lower, to around 2-3%. This creates both a challenge and an opportunity – while the active market is small, identifying and engaging these buyers effectively can drive immediate results.
However, the remaining 95-97% represents your future market. These are people who will eventually need your product or service, but aren’t currently looking.
According to research published in the Journal of Marketing, consumers spend 79% of their purchase decision journey before directly interacting with brands, highlighting why early brand presence matters more than just targeting in-market audiences.
IN-MARKET IMPACT
In-Market Targeting in a Balanced Strategy
In-market audience targeting remains a crucial tool in modern marketing. When deployed strategically, it serves as a powerful mechanism for capturing immediate sales opportunities and gathering actionable insights.
Well-executed in-market campaigns allow brands to efficiently reach high-intent audiences, providing a testing ground for messaging optimisation while supporting critical business objectives.
The key lies in using in-market targeting as part of a broader strategy, not as your only approach. According to Field and Binet’s research, the optimal split is roughly 60% brand building and 40% activation for most categories.
SYNERGY
Integrated channels win the modern buyer
Marketing teams often visualise the customer journey as a neat, linear path: awareness leads to engagement, which leads to conversion. But reality is far messier. Customers jump between channels, devices, and touchpoints in unpredictable patterns. They might see a TV ad, google your product weeks later, encounter a social media post, visit your website multiple times, and finally convert through a retargeting ad – or vice versa.
This scattered reality of modern consumer behaviour makes channel integration not just beneficial, but essential. Data from Harvard Business Review reveals that omnichannel customers spend more than single-channel customers, demonstrating the tangible value of integrated approaches.
The synergy between online and offline channels creates compounding effects. When messages are reinforced across different touchpoints, they become more memorable and effective. This isn’t just about reaching more people, it’s about creating multiple touchpoints that reinforce your message across the scattered customer journey.
YOUR WEBSITE?
The power of brand-driven activation
The challenge for modern marketers isn’t just about reaching in-market audiences effectively, it’s about understanding how brand building and activation work together across the customer journey.
Take Innocent Drinks’ approach: Their consistent investment in a playful, authentic brand voice has created exceptional mental availability in a crowded category. This brand strength translates directly to activation effectiveness. Their seasonal campaigns achieve 45% higher engagement rates than category benchmarks. Their “Big Knit” campaign demonstrates this synergy perfectly, while building brand values around community involvement, it simultaneously drives immediate sales. The key is that their activation campaigns don’t just push promotions, they reinforce the brand’s distinctive personality, making each tactical campaign work harder while building long-term brand equity.
In practice, this means moving beyond the false choice between brand and activation marketing. The most successful brands maintain consistent presence through brand building while deploying tactical activation for in-market audiences. They use data to enhance both approaches, building mental availability for future purchase occasions while capturing immediate opportunities.
How can June2O help you?
At June20, we specialise in creating marketing strategies that balance immediate results with long-term brand building. Our approach combines sophisticated in-market targeting capabilities with strategic brand development across both digital and traditional channels, ensuring both immediate sales and sustainable growth.
Want to know if your advertising budget is being spent effectively? Let’s perform a performance audit of your current marketing mix and identify opportunities for both short-term activation and long-term brand building.
