Understanding Target Audience

Being successful online is all about cultivating as many new customers as possible. With that fact in mind, it’s no wonder that many organisations assume that they should try to share their message with as many different people as possible. After all, the wider your reach, the more potential customers you can get.

Content marketing success starts with knowing how to find your target audience. After all, how can you begin creating content before you know who your audience is.

Good content marketing takes time. A lot of it. You can’t afford to waste that time with content that isn’t perfectly focused on your target market. You need to find who your people are.

In the modern, digital world of the day, we’re constantly bombarded with huge amounts of information. In fact, users on WordPress are producing about 82.6 million new posts a month. If you’re not out there speaking to a specific group of people, there’s a good chance your message will end up drowning in that sea of unfocused noise.

It’s true that great content tends to naturally attract an audience. It does not, however, guarantee that it will be the best audience for your brand. That means visitors that are likely to:

• Connect your content to your product.
• Buy your product because of your content.

Before you can start listing your target audience demographics or browsing through the types of target audience, you need to understand why you’re segmenting your list of would-be traffic in the first place. A target audience profile is simply a specific group of customers most likely to respond positively to your promotions, products, and services.

How To Understand Your Target Market

What do customers stand to gain from choosing us (instead of a competitor)? What features do you offer that no one else does? Is there something you can do better than anyone else?

Who is my competition? It’s likely you know who your obvious competitors are. However, some quick searches on Google and social media (particularly on Facebook and Twitter) can often reveal upstart competition you may not have been aware of. Try searching a keyword or two that are related to your industry.

Who are our current customers? If you’re not sure who buys your product or service, someone in your organization almost certainly does. Consider asking your company’s executives or sales teams for this information. It may also be necessary to segment your types of customers.

What problems does my company’s product or service solve? If you’ve been in business for any length of time, you should have some understanding of why your product or service exists. Your content should be related to that purpose, too (that means resisting the urge to share irrelevant memes just because they’re funny if it’s not connected to your mission, it doesn’t belong in your content marketing).

Often, your target audience analysis will be based on specific factors like location, age, income, and so on. For instance, if you’re a makeup company, there’s a good chance you’ll want to appeal to women who can afford your products and live in an area you can ship to.

So, why is a target audience important? The simple answer to that question is that the channels, language, and information you use to connect with your audience might not be as effective with one demographic as it is with another. Finding your target audience definition will help you to create a tone of voice that really speaks to your customer.

Essentially, a target audience analysis gives you direction for your marketing and ensures more consistency in your messaging, so you can build stronger relationships with customers. After all, if you know:

• What kind of people you’re talking to, you’ll know how to speak to them, where to find them, and what they want from your brand?
• How those people talk, you’ll be able to adapt your keywords and SEO strategies to rank for the right words and phrases.
• What your customers want, you’ll be able to adapt your value proposition so that your brand is relevant to a specific need or problem.
• How they compare and choose products, you can adjust your marketing campaigns to make your offering seem the most compelling.

Considering your target audience demographics

There are countless different types of target audience out there. In fact, the market for any single brand is likely to be unique to that company. After all, every company has a different set of values, a different purpose, and a one-of-a-kind strategy for sales. As you begin to discover the answer to the question: “Why is a target audience important?” you’ll learn that you often have to combine numerous characteristics to get an effective user persona. Aside from the things mentioned above, remember to look at:

• Income or job title.
• Family or relationship status.
• Needs and aspirations.
• Problems and concerns.
• Which social media websites they use.
• Favourite websites.
• Buying motivation.
• Buying concerns.

Personality-driven target audience profile

Personality is a critical component of effective marketing, and it’s something that should show up in all your campaigns. When you’re thinking about how to identify a target audience, it’s always worth thinking about what’s valuable to your customer, and what isn’t. How do your clients spend their free time? What issues do they care about? For instance, if you decide you want to connect with a millennial audience that cares about social responsibility, you might invest more into showing off your ethical side.

A geographical or “local” target audience profile:

There are very few brands that can afford to target customers from around the world. Not only is it more difficult to earn attention when your scope is that large, but you probably won’t be able to deliver your services and products to people from every country anyway. Unless you offer digital services, think about how you can connect with new customers locally. How far can you afford to travel to offer services, and what’s the maximum distance for shipping your products?

An age-based target audience profile:

People of different ages act in different ways. Interestingly, the person most likely to use your product won’t always be the person you target. For instance, if you’re conducting a target audience analysis for a baby, then your target audience is more likely to be parents, than newborns. When you don’t have an obvious age-range for your customers, as in the case above, try and keep your target market as narrow as possible. For instance, if you sell enterprise-level software, research the most likely ages of CEOs in your industry. This will help you to design promotional strategies that appeal to the right age-range.