By: Nicole Bergen, Founder of Elevate
Most businesses focus on who already buys and miss the customers driving their next phase of growth.
Most businesses feel confident about who their best customer is. And to be fair, about 60% of the time, they’re not wrong. If you’ve been in business long enough, you have a solid sense of who you’re currently attracting.
But knowing who you’re attracting is very different from understanding who you’re missing.
That’s where market research comes in.
As the founder of Elevate, I’ve helped hundreds of regional businesses in home improvement, personal injury law, and retail uncover new audiences and unlock millions in growth.
And nearly all of them come in with the same problem: they know who buys, but they don’t know how to expand to new markets.
The gap between your current customer and your highest-value opportunity is where most businesses leave money on the table.
This article breaks down what we see over and over again, where businesses get it wrong, and what changes when you finally have real data behind your decisions.
If you’re looking to break into a new market or increase your revenue, this one’s for you. Backed by my research and real customer data. You can also watch here.
The Biggest Mistakes CMOs Make About Targeting Customers
How do I know if I’m targeting the right audience?
One of the clearest signs you’re not targeting the right audience is when you’re making decisions based on assumptions instead of real data.
A lot of businesses take for granted that older people have more money — and that is frankly incorrect.
Generation X is one of the smallest population groups, but collectively they represent the largest amount of disposable income in the U.S. economy in 2026.
Millennials are similarly underestimated. People think of them as young, but millennials are now 45 years old. They’re buying their second home, in their second stage of life, with decent disposable income.
These two generations grew up in a very different era than their Boomer parents. And in many cases, the people running regional companies like yours (C-suite leaders and business owners) skew older because of experience.
That gap means they often don’t know how to connect with the generations that represent a tremendous amount of revenue opportunity for them.
Am I looking at the right data to understand my audience?
Probably not. It is the age-old approach of asking your cousin, your neighbor, who you see come in the front door, or reading Google reviews. I like to say that is a sample size of one or five — quantitative research, what we use to determine new markets, is a sample size of 400 or 1,000.
Another issue that comes up a lot, particularly in the legal profession, is when a principal or recognizable spokesperson asks someone directly what they think of their business. Human nature means people are generally going to respond positively. They are not going to say they dislike the ads or don’t trust the brand. That kind of honest feedback only surfaces in a larger, anonymous data set coming from an independent third party.
And there is another dimension to this: what does it matter what someone thinks if they are not even in the target demographic? I have a client — a retailer trying to do business with affluent women — where everyone at the boardroom table is an older male. Their collective opinions about how to market to women are obviously limited because no one in that room represents the customer they are trying to reach.
That is exactly why market research exists: to get the truth from the people you want to do business with.
Can research actually change who we target?
Absolutely. A very large home services company we worked with in the Chicagoland area had been advertising heavily in sports stadiums. They were seeing a lot of men under 35 coming through their call center (because that was where they were spending their advertising dollars).
Then they did research with us. We helped them understand who actually makes the decision in the home about hiring a plumber, electrician, or HVAC technician. The answer? Women over 35.
At that time, they weren’t even considering channels to reach that female decision-maker. The research helped them understand the need for a shift — not a complete 180, but a small adjustment with a big impact.
We suggested siphoning off roughly 20% of the budget from sports advertising into more targeted channels to reach these women.
The result?
They saw a 300% increase in growth over the next 12 months. All from just that small shift in budget and focus on a segment they had previously been ignoring.
Research matters. Targeting matters.
What Audience Segments are We Overlooking?
What are the most overlooked customer segments?
Renters, honestly. People tend to discount renters, assuming they do not have money. But if you are not house-poor with a large mortgage, renters in major cities like Manhattan or San Francisco can have significant disposable income. Sometimes enough to purchase a high-end sofa or a luxury car that a similarly-earning homeowner might not be able to afford. It’s a surprisingly overlooked segment.
The Hispanic market is also frequently underserved by general market brands and products. They represent a tremendous amount of disposable income in the U.S., particularly in markets like Los Angeles, Miami, and New York. Many brands simply are not speaking to them in a meaningful way.
Why are we not reaching the right customers?
Honestly, it comes down to budget. As marketers, we would love to reach everyone, but a scatter-and-pray approach is neither cost-efficient nor measurable. So, the natural tendency is to focus where the research shows you already have a competitive stronghold.
Growing an existing segment is always the most economical starting point. That said, sometimes there is an obvious blind spot right next to where you are already strong.
In the earlier example, the client was so focused on men under 35 that women under 35 were completely overlooked. And siphoning even a small percentage of budget toward that hidden segment produced significant results.
Age demographics work the same way. I had a client whose median customer age was 62. I was able to model for the business owner that if they could shift their customer demographics down by just five years, it could represent three million additional dollars in revenue.
It’s not about a dramatic rebrand. It is a slight pivot toward a hidden segment, done in a measured way.
How Audience Research Can Help You Expand to New Markets
Why doesn’t our marketing work in new markets?
This is a tricky one. As a business scales across four, five, or six markets, it becomes cost-prohibitive to have custom marketing plans, creative, and media buys for each market, especially with a small or nimble team.
But the downside of lifting a playbook from one part of the country and applying it to another, where the market is fundamentally different, can be significant.
We saw this with a window company based in Florida that was very successful in that state.
When they tried to move their playbook to Louisiana, it bombed. The research showed that the demographics of that geography were meaningfully different, with different pressure points, pain points, and purchase influences.
They had to pivot quickly based on that finding. Knowing that in advance would have saved them considerable time and money.
How detailed does audience research actually need to be?
Most of our studies operate at the DMA (Designated Market Area) or county level. So, within the Los Angeles DMA, for example, you can separate out Orange County, Los Angeles County, the Valley, Santa Clarita, and so on by grouping zip codes together.
To move into new markets, you want this level of granularity.
That said, be careful about statistical significance. Once you drop below 200 to 300 respondents in a geographic area, the data becomes unstable when you start cross-tabulating.
For example, isolating women in that area, or Hispanic homeowners with a household income of $200K or more would be unstable. You need enough sample within each geographic segment to make reliable inferences and draw meaningful comparisons.
What is a psychographic profile, and how is it useful?
A psychographic profile goes beyond age and geography. It captures lifestyle. Persona.
Is this a bargain shopper? Does this consumer value organic products, luxury, craftsmanship, or things made in the USA? These are the attributes that define a customer beyond demographics alone.
Once you know a persona’s pressure points and what matters to them, it becomes much easier to develop compelling storytelling and identify the platforms most likely to reach them.
Knowing someone is 38 and lives in Phoenix tells you very little. Knowing they are a quality-driven homeowner who values transparency and shops based on trust gives you everything you need to build a message that resonates.
How to Actually Use Audience Research
How do we adjust our marketing after finding a new audience?
I always go back to the marketing funnel — top, middle, and bottom. Start with your research, identify the ideal customer persona, and then ask: what message does this person need to hear at each stage?
At the top of the funnel, it’s awareness. In the middle it is education. At the bottom it is conversion. Then use the qualitative research to identify the right channels at each stage.
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- At the top, it might be direct mail, outdoor, and radio.
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- In the middle, email marketing and paid social.
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- At the bottom, LSA, Google PPC, Yelp, or another conversion-focused channel.
Identify two to three channels per funnel stage, match them with the right message, and execute that plan consistently. That becomes your growth blueprint.
How to shift my messaging toward a new audience without alienating current customers?
This can be genuinely difficult, and we see this most acutely in rebrands. A company that has operated under the same name for 50 years and decides to rebrand as part of an expansion now must communicate to the public: same great company, same great people, new name. That process is expensive and should be done gradually and intentionally.
The approach I recommend?
- Identify what your message is today
- Define what you want it to become
- Choose three ways you will communicate that shift across three different channels
- Execute in a measured way over a defined short and long-term window.
Start with the channels that are currently having the greatest impact on your business and build from there.
What To Do if Your Marketing Isn’t Driving Growth
If you’ve been running the same campaign to the same audience for two or more years, it’s worth asking a simple question: are you actually growing, or just getting more of the same?
Because most businesses don’t have a customer problem. They have an understanding problem.
They know who’s already buying. But they don’t know who they’re missing or how much opportunity is sitting right next to their current audience.
If your growth has stalled and your KPIs aren’t moving, it’s not a mystery. It’s a signal.
And at that point, guessing won’t fix it.
Check-in with your market. Get grounded in qualitative data (not assumptions). And close that gap. In many cases, audience research is where the next phase of growth comes from.
