A target audience is who you intend to focus your message towards to sell your product or service. You can create your target audience based on elements like location, age, gender, or even interests. Learning how to identify your company’s target audience may seem easy, but recognizing your target audience is usually the most challenging aspect of beginning a campaign. Playbook Public Relations offers some advice to determine your company’s target market.
- Look at Your Current Customer Base
Defining your current customers is fundamental to understanding the type of people buying your product/service. Your consumer’s age range, gender, income level, education level, marital status, occupation, and ethnic background are some of the first things to identify when figuring out your target audience. Once you have a feel for the demographics and psychographics, you can understand their personality, attitudes, values, interests, lifestyle, and hobbies. This information will help narrow down your target audience if it is too broad.
- Ask Yourself, “When Will My Consumer Use This?”
Research why and when this specific product or service will be necessary for your audience. Will the product help simplify day-to-day tasks? There is always a need for what you are selling, so make sure you clearly state what that need is. Regulating the type of media your target uses and finding ways to market your brand through that exact social media will aid in the communication between you and the target audience.
- Learn From Your Competition
Check out your competition and compare your target audience to theirs. Find what your competitors are missing to make your brand stand out. Capitalizing on your competitor’s mistakes of overlooking a critical factor in their research can give you a leg-up for your company.
Once you feel that you have a strong target audience and the characteristics to describe them are concrete, you have accomplished one of the most challenging criteria for your company. The way you engage and the “voice” you use to communicate with your potential and loyal customers will arise from strategically identifying the audience. The rest is simple, so nail down your primary focus and see how well your business benefits after following these tips.
