One of the most pivotal things to any marketing strategy is the right Target Audience. If you haven’t chosen the right target audience, your entire marketing strategy can collapse on itself. Most budding entrepreneurs try to appeal to everyone only to attract no one.
Marketing to the right audience is more important than ever. With today’s global e-commerce market, it’s easy to see very little return on your marketing efforts. It doesn’t make sense to target everyone, so how do you know who the correct audience is for your business?
The answer to that question is to create a target audience profile. This can be a powerful marketing tool for any business. A user profile will give you a structured look at the needs your audience has, that your products or services can meet, the features and content that matter most to them, and the messaging that will resonate with them.
Essentially, it is simply a specific group of customers most likely to respond positively to your promotions, products, and services. It is often based on specific factors like location, age, income, and so on.
For instance, if you’re a Chocolate company, there’s a good chance you’ll want to appeal to kids and their parents who can afford your products and live in an area you can ship to.
So why is Targeting 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. Defining your target audience will help you refine your marketing tactics, your message and tone that really resonate to your customer.
After all if you know these 4 points:
- What kind of people you’re talking to
- How do those people talk?
- What your customer wants
- How they compare and choose products
You can adjust your marketing campaigns and make your company more reliable and relevant to your customers.
Funnily enough, we have unconsciously done the target audience profiling even at an early age. Think back to when you were a kid – when you wanted something, be it a treat or a new game, you went through the target audience process. You knew that your parents wouldn’t agree – so you went to your grandparents or a relative and you made sure to catch them in the right mood, saying the right thing – telling them the right promise to get what you wanted. That there is an example of defining your target audience!
It’s a very simplified scenario, but businesses must go through that process to get the optimum results. It doesn’t make sense to try to please everyone. You get better results when you invest your time, energy and money at the right target audience.
How to build a Targeted Audience profile?
Trying to sell without knowing your audience is like driving with your eyes closed. Analysing your customer base and determining commonalities among the many individuals enables you to more specifically target your marketing efforts, which can result in more sales.
Always having a comprehensive target audience profile will help you to better define what your customers are looking for, and decide how you can fulfill their needs. Fortunately, creating a useful profile isn’t hard, and simply requires a bit of time and research.
Building a targeted audience profile involves in 4 steps
1. Create Broad Descriptions of your Ideal Customers
Before you look at specific demographics, you need to consider what is important to your customers, and what makes them want to purchase your product or service. This is where customer reviews influences a lot.
First, consider your customers’ attitudes toward your product. How do they feel about it, and what problems does it solve for them? Some other questions to think about at this stage include:
- Why would your customers choose your product or service over your competition?
- Do your customers understand the value of your product or do they need to be coached?
- Do they care more about the product or its features?
2. Research your potential customer’s Demographics
Now that you have some broad descriptions of your potential customers, you can begin to fill in further details. Including demographic information of your target audience profiles, which will help you understand your customer base better.
While some basic demographics may be easy to identify, some demographics may require more research to identify, such as:
- Age
- Location
- Job and income
- Family status
- Preferred social media sites
For instance, if you are selling Toys – your product is likely to be made for kids, but your target audience are the parents who do the purchasing.
Once you have this information, you’ll be better able to understand the motivations of your target audience.
3. Identify the needs and problems of your target audience
By now, you have a good idea of who your ideal customers are. Next, you’ll need to identify their needs and ‘pain points’.
Put yourself in the shoes of your potential customers, and look at your products or services from their point of view. What motivates them to buy? Some other things to consider include:
- What concerns might they have that your product can help them feel better about?
- How does your product solve a problem they’re facing?
- What are they worried about that might prevent them from buying your product?
Consider your customers’ needs based on this information, and you’ll have a much better idea about how to present your products in a way that makes them appealing. Knowing your target audience may also help you to better define your niche in the market.
4. Determine where customers will find you
Last but not least, it’s important to think about how customers will find your company or offerings. It doesn’t matter how great your products are, if your customers can’t find them and don’t know that they exist
This requires analysing where your potential customers/target audience spend their time online and asking questions such as:
- What websites do they visit?
- What blogs do they read?
- Which social media sites do they frequent?
- What are the likely search-terms they use?
- What content appeals to them?
For example, if you sell professional products, you may consider using LinkedIn as a part of your marketing efforts. On the other hand, If you sell visual products Fashion products, you may consider a social media platform that relies on images like Instagram.
It is important to reach out to your audience in spaces they’re already familiar and comfortable with. This increases your odds of finding the right people and grabbing their attention.
So to conclude, without knowing who your target audience is, much of your marketing efforts may fall on deaf ears. Building a target audience profile will enable you to create more meaningful content that resonates with potential customers.
For more insights into digital marketing-related tips and tricks, reach out to us at Bunjy.co. We are a top digital marketing agency in Chennai.