Determining your target audience is one of the most important things your business has to do before making any real traction. After all, It’s nearly impossible to market effectively when you don’t know who you’re marketing to. In fact, you probably shouldn’t even create a marketing strategy until you have a thorough understanding of who exactly your target audience is. 

Your target audience is the range of people who are most likely to engage with your company and buy your product. This group of people should be diverse but also similar enough that you can mass market your product efficiently. You’ll find that most marketing professionals emphasize the importance of having a niche, loyal customer base. The more detailed you can get when describing your target audience, the more personal your marketing can be.  

Who is your target audience? 

When defining your target audience, there are several elements that you need to consider. How old is your customer base? What kinds of jobs do they have? Which social media platforms do they frequent? And, arguably most importantly- What problem do they have that your product or service can solve? 

Let’s start at the basics; it’s hugely important to figure out the fundamental details of your target audience before doing anything else. Demographics can be a massive help when marketing to a broader audience. The average age range, job title, gender, race, and location of your audience are all extremely useful bits of information to know about before creating a marketing campaign. 

Demographics are a great way to get a head start on creating an advertising strategy, however, they’re also helpful in many other ways. Knowing your audience’s basic demographics can help you determine other important aspects that will ultimately make your marketing campaign even more targeted and successful than it was before. 

For example, let’s say that you’ve found your average customer to be a 25-year-old woman who lives in the United States. According to this Master-level document from Sprout Social, With 48% of the platform’s users identifying as female and the average user age of 25-34, Instagram is probably the best place you can engage with this specific customer. Through a little research, you should easily be able to find out which social media platform is the best to market through just by knowing their age, location, and gender. 

Defining your target audience will also teach you a lot about how your audience likes to communicate. While younger customers may prefer interacting via social media, many members of older generations prefer to be communicated with through television or email. 

Learning about your target audience will not only be essential to creating a marketing strategy, but it will also be hugely beneficial to your sales team. For instance, if you find out that the majority of your audience has an average yearly income of $100k, you might find that you can bump up the price of your product. Similarly, if you find that sales have been slow and see your average customer base is younger, with a smaller salary, you may want to adjust prices accordingly. 

Finally, we need to cover the importance of solving your customer’s issues. As many entrepreneurs already know, the key to creating a successful business is ensuring that your product or service solves an issue that people have. Your target audience should consist of the people who have that problem. 

Conclusion

At the end of the day, discovering your target audience is a fundamental part of creating a long-lasting, successful business. You may find that your target audience has changed through the years- and that’s not a bad thing! As your company grows and changes, your audience will as well. It’s important to take time every few months to review and reestablish your target audience in order to continue marketing effectively.