How to start marketing the right way: audience research before tactics
Know the buyer before you choose a channel: demographics, psychographics and behaviour, the AI tools that speed up research, and what Canada’s diversity means for your plan.
Good marketing starts with research, not with a channel. Before you spend on ads or content, learn who the buyer is, what triggers them to look, what they believe and fear, and where they spend attention. Combine real customer conversations with public data, use AI assistants to speed up the desk work, and test your assumptions with a small campaign. In Canada, plan for a multicultural audience from the first day.
- Demographics tell you who could buy. Psychographics and behaviour tell you why and when they do.
- Five customer interviews will teach you more than a month of guessing.
- AI assistants are fast research partners for questions, summaries and patterns. They are not a source of facts about your customers.
- Nearly one in four people in Canada is an immigrant, and more than 450 ethnic or cultural origins were reported in the 2021 Census. One message rarely fits everyone.
Key terms explained (6)
- CRM
- Customer relationship management software: one place that stores your contacts, conversations, appointments and deals. GoHighLevel and HubSpot are examples.
- Psychographics
- What people value, want, fear and believe, as opposed to demographics such as age and income.
- Service area
- The towns or region a business travels to. Service-area businesses can hide their address on Google Business Profile.
- Search Console
- Google’s free tool that shows how your site appears in search, which queries bring visitors and any indexing problems.
- Hook
- The opening of a video or post, usually the first one to three seconds or first line, written to make people keep watching or reading.
- FAQ
- Frequently asked questions.
Why does marketing start with research?
Most marketing that fails was built backwards. Someone chose a channel first, such as Instagram, Google Ads or a new website, then looked for something to say on it. The message was a guess, so the results were too.
Marketing is applied behaviour. People buy when a situation in their life meets an offer they understand and trust. Your job is to learn that situation well enough to show up at the right moment with the right words. That is research, and it comes before any tactic.
What do I need to know about my audience?
Three layers, each answering a different question:
| Layer | What it describes | Examples | What it decides |
|---|---|---|---|
| Demographics | Who they are | Age, income, location, household, language, occupation | Where to reach them and whether they can buy |
| Psychographics | What they think and value | Goals, fears, beliefs, values, lifestyle, identity | Your message, tone and proof |
| Behaviour | What they do | Triggers, search habits, channels, objections, buying cycle | Your timing, channels and offer |
Psychographics are the layer most businesses skip. Two homeowners of the same age and income can buy for opposite reasons. One wants the cheapest fix today. The other wants never to think about the problem again. They need different headlines, different proof and different prices.
Step 1: Start with the customers you already have
Your best research source is people who already bought. Speak to five of them. Ask:
- What was happening when you first started looking for this?
- What did you try or consider before us?
- What nearly stopped you from going ahead?
- Why did you choose us in the end?
- How would you describe what we do to a friend?
Record the calls with permission and write down their exact phrases. Those phrases become your headlines, your ad hooks and your FAQ questions. If you have no customers yet, interview five people who recently bought from a competitor.
Step 2: Add public data
Interviews give you depth. Public data tells you how many people are like that and where they are.
- Census data. Statistics Canada’s Census Profile shows age, income, household size, languages and immigration for any city or neighbourhood.
- Search behaviour. Google Trends shows how interest changes by season and region. Ubersuggest and AlsoAsked show the questions people type.
- Your own numbers. Google Search Console shows the searches that already bring people to you. Your CRM (customer relationship management software) shows which leads became customers and where they came from.
- Reviews. Read your reviews and your competitors’. Five-star reviews show what people value. One-star reviews show what they fear.
Step 3: Use AI as a research partner
AI assistants don’t know your customers. They are very good at the desk work around research: drafting questions, summarising long documents, finding patterns in transcripts and challenging your assumptions. Use more than one, because each has a different strength.
| Tool | Strongest for | Try it for |
|---|---|---|
| Claude | Careful analysis of long material | Upload interview transcripts and reviews, then ask for recurring themes with supporting quotes |
| ChatGPT | Brainstorming and quick drafts | Generate interview questions, survey wording and first-draft personas to test |
| Gemini | Research across Google and your Workspace files | Summarise market reports and pull findings from documents in your Drive |
| Grok | Current conversation on X | See how people are talking about a topic, brand or problem right now |
| Perplexity | Answers with cited sources | Find statistics and industry facts, then open each source to confirm them |
Three prompts worth saving:
I run a [business] serving [audience] in [city]. Write 10 open-ended interview questions to learn what triggers people to look for this service, what they fear and how they choose. Avoid leading questions.
Here are five customer interview transcripts. List the recurring triggers, objections and decision factors. For each, quote the customer’s exact words and say how many interviews mentioned it.
Here is my description of my ideal customer. List the assumptions I’m making that I haven’t proven, and suggest one cheap way to test each.
Two rules. First, check every fact an assistant gives you against its source, because AI can be confidently wrong. Second, remove names and contact details before you upload customer conversations.
Step 4: Plan for a multicultural Canada
If you market in Canada, “the average customer” does not exist. In the 2021 Census, 23% of the population were immigrants, the highest share since Confederation, and Statistics Canada projects that could reach 29% to 34% by 2041. India, the Philippines and China were the top places of birth for recent arrivals. The same census recorded more than 450 ethnic or cultural origins, and about one in four people identified with a racialized group.
What that means in practice:
- Look up your actual area. The mix in Brampton is different from Barrie, and both differ from Halifax. Use the Census Profile for your service area before you write a word.
- Understand who decides. In many households a purchase is a family decision that includes parents or extended family. Your message and your follow-up should allow for that.
- Trust travels through community. Referrals, community groups, places of worship, cultural media and local events often matter more than a search ad. Show up where the community already gathers.
- Respect the calendar. Diwali, Lunar New Year, Eid, Vaisakhi and many other occasions shape when people buy, celebrate and travel. Plan campaigns around the dates your audience keeps.
- Translate meaning, not words. If you offer service in another language, have a fluent speaker write or review it. A literal translation can lose the point or cause offence.
- Represent people accurately. Use real photos of your team and customers. Avoid stereotypes, and ask someone from the community to review the work before it runs.
- Remember newcomers are new to the category. Someone who arrived last year may not know how insurance, credit or home services work here. Clear explanations win their trust.
Step 5: Turn the research into a one-page profile
Summarise what you learned on a single page for each audience:
- Who: the demographic basics and where they live.
- Trigger: the event that starts the search.
- Goal: what a good outcome looks like in their words.
- Fears and objections: what could stop them.
- Proof they need: reviews, credentials, guarantees, examples.
- Where they pay attention: search, social platforms, community, events.
- Words they use: five phrases taken directly from interviews.
If a line on the page is a guess, mark it as a guess. Those are the things to test next.
One-page customer profile builder
Fill in what your interviews told you. The profile updates as you type.
The examples are placeholders. Replace them with what your own customers said, then paste the result into your plan.
Step 6: Test before you scale
Research gives you a strong hypothesis, not a guarantee. Before committing a full budget, run a small test: one landing page, one offer, two or three versions of the message, and a modest ad spend or an email to your list. Measure leads and bookings, not clicks. Keep what works, fix the profile where you were wrong, and then choose your channels.
What are the most common mistakes?
- Starting with the channel. "We need to be on TikTok" is not a strategy.
- Inventing a persona in a meeting. A persona with a name and a stock photo is still a guess if nobody talked to a customer.
- Stopping at demographics. Age and income don't explain why people buy.
- Treating a diverse market as one audience. One message for everyone usually lands with no one.
- Asking people what they would do. Ask what they did. Past behaviour is far more reliable than predictions.
- Researching once. Markets move. Revisit the profile at least once a year.
A one-week research plan
- Day 1. Write down what you believe about your customer. Use AI to list your unproven assumptions.
- Day 2 and 3. Interview five customers. Record and transcribe.
- Day 4. Pull the Census Profile for your area, your Search Console queries and your reviews.
- Day 5. Use an AI assistant to find patterns across everything. Check its summary against the transcripts.
- Day 6. Write the one-page profile.
- Day 7. Plan one small test for the following week.
Tools for the job
| Tool | Use it for | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Claude | Analysing transcripts, reviews and long documents | Free plan |
| ChatGPT | Brainstorming questions, surveys and draft personas | Free plan |
| Gemini | Research across Google and Workspace files | Free plan |
| Grok | Current conversation and sentiment on X | Free plan |
| Perplexity | Finding statistics with cited sources | Free plan |
| Census Profile | Demographics for any Canadian community | Free |
| Google Trends | Interest by season and region | Free |
| Ubersuggest | Keywords and questions people search | Limited free use |
| Google Search Console | The searches that already find you | Free |
Plans and pricing change. Check each tool's site for current details.
Frequently asked questions
What are psychographics in marketing?
Psychographics describe what people think and value: their goals, fears, beliefs, lifestyle and identity. They explain why two people with the same demographics make different buying decisions.
How many customer interviews do I need?
Start with five. Patterns usually appear quickly. Keep going until new interviews stop telling you anything new.
Which AI tool is best for market research?
Use them together. An assistant such as Claude or ChatGPT for questions and analysis, a search-focused tool such as Perplexity or Gemini for cited facts, and Grok for current conversation on X. Always confirm facts at the source.
Can AI replace talking to customers?
No. AI can prepare your questions and analyse the answers. It cannot tell you what your own customers think, because it has never spoken to them.
Do I need separate campaigns for each cultural community?
Not always. Start by checking who lives in your service area. Where a community is a large part of your market, tailored messages, languages or channels are usually worth it. Have someone from that community review the work.
Related playbooks
Browse every playbook on marketing strategy, or see all marketing playbooks.
Sources
- Immigrants make up the largest share of the population in over 150 yearsStatistics Canada, The Daily
- The Canadian census: A rich portrait of the country's religious and ethnocultural diversityStatistics Canada, The Daily
- Census Profile, 2021 Census of PopulationStatistics Canada
Remar Catapang is a full-funnel marketing strategist based in Ontario, Canada. He has worked in marketing since 2020 and continues to lead search, CRM automation, web, paid media and experiential campaigns for businesses in Canada, the United States, Australia, Egypt and the Philippines. His playbooks are based on that ongoing work. Questions about this playbook: remarcatapangjr@gmail.com
