If you’ve already read up on some business marketing, you may have heard the phrase “target audience.”
Targeting a specific section of your audience and targeting your marketing to a specific demographic will yield a much higher ROI and more successful results.
But how do you even begin to know who your target audience is so that you can, well, target them?
Don’t worry, we’ve got you. We can work together to help you define and attract your ideal group of people that your product/service can benefit from.
Define, Define, and Define
We need to know who your future clients are. We need to define who is going to be interested in your product and likely to purchase it.
Saying “everyone” is not gonna help you. Even if you have the most useful product in the world, you need to focus your attention on a certain audience.
You need to dig deep on this one and truly understand the appeal of your product or service. You need to have a clear definition so you can aim your language and marketing towards specific people and not create boring, general market noise.
You’ll need to be able to name the demographics of your audience. This means knowing how old they are, where they live, their gender, income level, education level, family status, and their line of work.
Start off with a larger group. Let’s say your product is really useful for young professionals. Maybe you’re creating an efficient organizer or have professional communication classes. We would still need to get a little more detailed on who exactly your clients are.
Think about demographics and specific interests. Do you think your clients have young families or are flying solo? Do they like to go out or stay in for entertainment? What are their values? What is their personality like?
Take a few moments and write everything you imagine your future client is and has. Don’t be afraid to get detailed about it.
Having a clear idea of where they spend their time, what they eat, how much spending money they have and what they like to watch will help you come up with detailed plans on how to actually reach your potential clients.
Writing up a fake person and giving them all of these details may help you to better visualize your target audience.
What Exactly Makes Your Product Useful?
Analyze your product or service. Don’t just look at it and say it’s useful. Explore the details and bigger ideas behind it.
If you have a great fitness app, write a list of how each exercise or diet plan benefits your clients. Maybe the diet plans are fast and easy for someone with a busy lifestyle. Perhaps the exercises are easy to adjust if you have injuries.
The benefits of the product can tell you who exactly you should be targeting.
Know the Clients You Have
If you already have a customer base, make note of everything that’s unique about them.
Look for shared interests and aspects of your customers. Your new potential customers are going to fit the mold of your existing audience.
Create a list and star why you think they buy from you. You can even ask what they like the most about your product or service.
Reviews from clients are especially useful when trying to focus in on and know who is buying your product or service. Keep complaint/review cards on-site and have a clear way for people to offer opinions on your website and social media.
Knowing the clients you already have is a great starting point for figuring out who you should be talking to.
The better you can identify and understand your existing audience, the better you can grow your audience.
Go Where You Can Reach Them
Defining your target audience involves understanding where they are, and having detailed demographics information to work with.
If you know where your clients go and what they do for entertainment, it can help you make the first contact with your target audience.
For example, if your target audience is retired men from age 65-75 in your hometown, you may decide to wind back on your Instagram feed and use a more appropriate social network or even local paper ads.
Another idea is to find out where your target audience eats in your hometown and put ads up near there instead of where there is younger traffic. This will also affect your language in your marketing as well.
In this example, you’d want to use clear, friendly, and direct language without using many phrases that a younger demographic recently created.
There will always be someone in your client base that does not fall into every category, that’s okay. The idea is to reach out and connect with any many people in this audience as you can.
Be Their Reflection
Once you have a better understanding of your target audience, you will know where you can find them and how to market to them. One way to really connect with your target audience is to create a brand that reflects them.
At this point, you’ve already studied how they are and where they go. Now you need to send out consistent messaging that they can connect to on a personal level. You can’t just send out one blast of ads that connect with them, you need to keep it up.
Your brand needs to constantly look and relate to the people you are working to serve. If your service helps creative go-getters, develop a website that represents and invites them. Have your social media be a safe place for them to express their interests.
Use bright colors and relevant language to keep all of your content separate from everyone else. When you use traditional media and print ads, keep the same voice. By doing this you not only continue to relate to your audience, but you also build a community.
Building a strong community should be the end goal of defining and finding your target audience.
It can seem like a lot of work to get started, but it is the only way to truly get your name out there and bring in new customers that will one day become loyal. Don’t lose your energy once you find your niche, constant, honest branding will help you define, find, and keep your target audience.
Ready to Find Your Target Audience?
At Elevare our job is to help you successfully get those loyal customers. If you’d like to know how we can help you and your business, please take a moment to fill out the form below for a free consultation.
