You keep hearing about how important it is to market to your “target audience” but you have no idea what that even means. What is a target audience? How do I find out what my target audience is? How is it beneficial to market directly to that target audience? These questions will be answered in this blog post.
What is a Target Audience?
The first question we should discuss is what a target audience actually is. A target audience is essentially your potential customers. The group of people most interested in your product/service. You wouldn’t want to sell cat food to someone that owns a dog, right?
It’s that simple. You want to make sure that you are marketing your product to the right group. Ask yourself, who would want to purchase this? Who would want more information? Which leads us into the next question-
How Do I Find My Target Audience?
You’ve asked yourself the questions, now it’s time to evaluate your answers and come to a conclusion. This process is not a one and done, this is an ongoing evaluation that you must continuously do in order to keep aligned with your audience.
The process of determining your target audience may seem daunting, but the bulk of this type of research can be outsourced if you find that you don’t have time to really dive in and get specific. At Elemental Plans, we offer services that would help you determine your target audience. You can find a list of the services we offer here, https://www.elementalplans.com/services.
There are several ways to determine who your target audience is, and we will review them quickly.
1. Research customer base and conduct interviews
You don’t have to do individual interviews. You can send out quick surveys to get a general idea of age, location, interests, etc. You want to make sure to get a good basis of who you are marketing to.
2. Market Research and Trends
You should always be conducting research in your market. Always try to stay on top of trends. By researching your market and your competition, you can find holes in the market and develop a niche to fill that hole.
3. Design Personas
A helpful tool in envisioning your target audience is to create “personas” for them. You can really get into the specifics of your target audience and create multiple personas you want to target. Continuing the dog food trend, your general target audience is of course dog owners, but individual personas could be someone that has never owned a dog before, elderly dogs, and large dogs. Each persona is unique yet still corresponds with the overall target audience. The differences would be what ads you are going to place in front of them.
What Are the Benefits of Directly Marketing to Your Target Audience?
Looking at it simply, the most obvious benefit of directly marketing to your target audience is the potential for conversions. They are moving into the marketing funnel. They already have somewhat of an interest in your product. They are more likely to purchase your product. A dog owner is more likely to purchase dog food than a cat owner purchasing dog food.
Another benefit would be saving time and money. Knowing who your audience is helps eliminate unnecessary ad postings. You can determine where exactly you need to post or who to reach out to. You aren’t going to send out mass mailings. You’ll target, say, 18–25-year-olds that own a dog in the Eastern region of the U.S.
If you’re thinking about using Elemental Plans to help with determining your target audience, this will free up a lot of your time for other endeavors. We take care of the hard part, and you get to do what you do best, work on your business.
To sum it up, a defined target audience is an essential key to success for any business. Without knowing who they are, you are marketing blindfolded, and probably aren’t making great conversions. You are wasting time and money on something that will never bring back business.
Make the smart decision for you and your small business by partnering with us to help your social media presence grow and create innovative marketing strategies to bring in business and help you succeed. To get in contact with us, click this link, https://www.elementalplans.com/contact, fill out the short form and someone will be in contact with you shortly!
Sources
Sprout Social, “How to define and reach your target audience on social media”, Jacqueline Zote, April 12, 2021, https://sproutsocial.com/insights/target-audience/, Accessed July 26, 2022
Marketing Evolution, “Steps to Find Your Target Audience”, Marketing Evolution, July 20, 2022, https://www.marketingevolution.com/marketing-essentials/target-audience, Accessed July 27, 2022