In an ideal world, the whole world would be a potential client interested in our product or service, but that’s not the truth, is it? Finding the right target audience marketing for your business is crucial to its success. There’s a mutual understanding between your business and your targeted audience – we’re in need of what you’re offering. It’s important to identify who your target audience is so that you can allocate most of your resources to effectively market to them.
The real question is: How can I identify my target market and what do I do once I know who they are?
Our question to you is: Are you considering a target marketing company, or do you plan to tackle the target audience marketing yourself?
If you’re the former, we’ll direct you to the right page to find out more.
If you’re the latter, buckle your seatbelts because you’re in for a bumpy ride! Well, not exactly a bumpy ride, but we’ve got what you need to learn how to identify and effectively market to your target audience.
Tell Me More About Target Audience
Gladly, bold title above.
Let’s identify what the difference is between a target market and a niche market because you may be thinking of a niche, as of now.
Niches are smaller and more specific groups within a target audience. Every business needs a target audience but not every business needs a niche market. Over time, some businesses actually stumble upon a niche market, naturally. Some businesses simply continue serving the niche market while still serving their larger audience.
The reason it’s imperative to identify a target audience is because the language, channels, and information you use to communicate with and appeal to one demographic may not be as effective with another.
Having a target audience gives you direction in your marketing, facilitates more consistency in your messaging, and allows you to deepen your connections with your customers.
Tell Me How To Identify My Target Audience
Sure thing, oh bold one.
Oddly enough, before we identify something, we must know how to properly define what it is. Defining you target audience allows you to efficiently market to the people you know you can impact. Below you’ll see three steps you can take to help define your target audience.
Problems and Needs
In order to efficiently utilize targeted online marketing strategies, your business needs to figure out the problems and needs of your current customers. Put yourself in their shoes and ask yourself what problems and needs they have for which your business is the solution. Think specific needs. For example, they need hiking gear, but specific hiking gear that endures the bitter cold. Do you solve this for them, specifically?
Profile Your Current Customers
What do your current customers have in common? You can gain amazing insight into what type of people are your repeat customer base. Look at all the similarities, broad and narrow. If the customer base is really large or diverse, you can segment them into a few different types of customers.
Stake Out Your Competition
Take a look at who your biggest competitors are going after. Identify their best selling products or services and get a feel for who they are trying to target. Does it fit with your business? If not, learn how to further distinguish yourself from them.
You’ve come to identify who your target audience is, but have you come to understand them? We can’t emphasize enough how important it is to learn as much as possible about your target market as you can. Lean their lifestyle, habits, preferences, needs, dislikes, favorites, and more. Here are two tips for you to better understand who your audience is.
Engagement
Use social media to/forums/comments to your advantage. Engage with your customers and followers to familiarize yourself with what’s important to them. Learning how they not only interact with your business but how they interact between themselves is a valuable resource.
Data
Consumers may tell you what they like, or think they may like, but hard data gives you another story of user behavior. Analytical platforms like Google Analytics will identify behavior patterns of your customer and business website visitors. From knowing which pages they frequent to which channels they’re visiting your site from, these analytical platforms provide you with a solid understanding of your target audience.
Final Thoughts
All in all, identifying who your target audience may be is just the first step, understanding your target audience is another ball game entirely. Do your due diligence and spend a considerable amount of time researching your target audience and analyze their behavior. Using analytical platforms can be your best friend, but don’t forget to ask your customers directly to know exactly what they want and need.
