Most business experts would agree that creating a product or service without a specific target audience in mind can lead to the failure of selling that product or service. A target audience ensures that you have a specific group of potential clients that are more likely to purchase what you have to offer. 

Ultimately, you can not have a marketing strategy and know where to direct all of your marketing dollars and efforts if you don’t know to whom you will be selling.

What Is A Target Audience?

Your target audience is the group of people who are clamoring for what you have to offer. They are the ones that you want to focus your marketing efforts on so that you cannot only generate sales of your offering but increase these sales over time. 

Your target audience identifies with and trusts your brand. They are on board with your mission and purpose. And they are more likely to become loyal brand ambassadors, spreading the news about your products or services. 

Your target audience may also share the same demographics, traits, or behaviors. It can include characteristics such as education level, employment, location, annual income, and many more. 

More detailed information can dive into their lifestyle and interests, where they spend their time online, what publications they read, and personal characteristics. 

Different Segments Of A Target Audience

When it comes to determining a target audience, consumers generally fall into one of two categories: decision-makers or influencers. Decision-makers are the actual customers that make a purchase. The influencers are the ones who play the ambassador role and encourage their circle of influence to make the purchase. 

Furthermore, you can subdivide target audiences even further into these categories:

• Special interests: Your target audience can be segmented based on their pastimes and their choices for entertainment. By identifying their interests, you are able to determine what they prefer to buy as well as what drives them to make a purchase.
• Purchase intent: This identifies a group of people who are looking to buy something specific. It reveals the pain points that your specific target audience has. With this vital information, you can use it to create custom, tailor-made campaigns to meet your customers’ needs.
• Subgroups/cultures: A target audience in this category shares a “common experience” like a similar generation, a time they grew up in, watching a particular show, or the like. Information like this reveals a deeper knowledge of who you are trying to attract with your message.

Advantages Of Identifying Your Target Audience

Without an effective strategy, all of your efforts can have you spinning in circles, without giving you the results that you want. Same with identifying your target audience. You want to funnel all of your marketing campaigns and resources in the right direction. These strategic efforts will help you reach the right audience, generate income, and grow your business. 

Knowing your target audience also makes it easier for keyword research. This will allow you to create content and also facilitate any advertising campaigns you launch in order to market your offerings.

With this key information, you will be able to create copy that addresses your target audience’s pain points, desires, and interests. Persuasive copy is what is necessary to convert casual visitors to buyers, and eventually, repeat buyers.  

Finally, by identifying your target audience, you are staying in tune with their changing interests and desires. It allows you to modify and fine-tune these offers to match these interests. By doing so, you increase your chances of succeeding with your marketing efforts, thereby, increasing your revenue. 

How To Identify Your Target Audience

1. Segment into groups: Start by dividing them into different groups. You can divide them based on their purchase history. If they have downloaded a freebie that you were offering on your website, you can put them in that category. You can also categorize them based on their psychographics and demographics. 
2. Market research: Before you go off and create your offer, get a lay of the land first. Find out what is currently out there in the market by conducting market research. It will reveal to you who your competitors are and how many exist. It will also tell you what is missing. This information will also form your differentiation in the market and how you can market yourself.
3. What are your competitors doing? Competitor analysis allows you to see what your competitors are up to, who they are targeting, and what customer pain points they are addressing. Your goal is to determine what the gaps are in their marketing and how you can fill them. 
4. Industry trends: It’s always a good strategy to look into what your competitors are doing. See where they are focusing their efforts on. It will help you identify where your product or service could be missing the mark and make the changes accordingly. Focus on the unique selling proposition of your product. 
5. Converse with your audience: The best way to determine what your customers want is to simply ask them. Conduct a survey on social media or send your e-mail subscribers a short questionnaire to get a feel for what they are wanting from your company. 
6. Gather and decode the data: All of the data that you have gathered thus far is marketing gold. It will reveal a clear picture of who your target audience really is, their habits, their preferences, demographic information, and psychographics. 

This can be used to further segment your audience and establish “value propositions”.

Closing Words

Knowing who your target audience is, grants you the information necessary to launch the right marketing campaigns. This means reaching your audience easily and generating more sales. Doing the heavy lifting, in the beginning, ensures you have produced a robust system that will not only create brand loyalty but will continue to generate revenue for years to come.