Target Audience

A target audience is a group of people that share similar needs and interests that a business aims to serve. These people are the end users in most cases.

In this video, you’ll get to know two different strategies that will help you find your target audience without much sweat. Check out!

Look back on your childhood and recall the day-to-day situation when you were about to beg for a piece of candy. The only thing that stopped you was the wise choice of asking your parents. Every little detail mattered, including your approach and parents’ mood. It’s the same with marketing — the right audience determines the success of your product.

What is the no. 1 mistake in business? Many startups tend to fail during their first operational year as they try to appeal to everyone. Each individual has different tastes and needs. So, every company should offer a specifically targeted product. Otherwise, a marketing campaign may result in nothing as it casts too wide a net.

It’s essential to realize precisely who your final consumers are because it assists with creating compelling marketing communication strategies. Thus, it is critical to narrow the focus to your core audience.

First of all, identifying your proper market sector makes it possible to focus your efforts cost-effectively. Without having to target everybody, you will minimize the money invested in your project and avoid the most common mistakes in email campaigns. One of the examples of successful market targeting is Facebook Ads. The tool allows you to select the audience based on its interests.

Sending the same message to each client is a bad idea. You will receive a better return on investment by targeting clients that may be interested in your offer.

Those are just some of the examples of why it is critical to target your audience correctly. We will dig a bit deeper to provide more reasons.

Beat the competitors

Each client that you miss because of poor targeting or marketing strategy that does not work smoothly becomes one of your rival’s customers. The idea is that if a person is searching for a specific product or service, they will eventually make a choice, and it does not necessarily have to be one company. It all depends on the effectiveness of your approach to marketing.

It is critical to select the “chosen buyers” from the narrow audience. Several loyal customers may guarantee higher profits and conversion rates than many one-time clients.

Reduce costs

Poorly assessed marketing campaigns will waste your time, money, and nerves. You should not try to launch ads too frequently. It is possible to target the right audience with a single correctly addressed and composed message. Numerous studies have shown a decrease in costs of more than 55% for companies that apply quality audience analysis. Targeted email marketing will help increase CTR and open rates with a minimum of investments.

Know your customer base

The base means a very narrow and specific audience. If you take into account only students when targeting the market for your online tutoring services, you should still divide them into different categories based on a subject they study, age, level of proficiency.

If your service offers advanced subjects, for example, the MBA level, then you should pick young people interested in related disciplines or those who already study in business schools. Drilling down into the nuances makes it possible to tailor campaigns that reach users who are most likely to purchase your products.

Find growth potential

Almost every business wants to expand and go big one day. Often, a small group of customers provides a chance to grow sales. If you produce milk-free ice cream, you should focus on those consumers who are lactose-intolerant and vegans. They will show you possible ways to expand by sharing fresh ideas and feedback.

The main obstacle on the way to select the proper segment is to target is the number of factors you should consider. You may ignore some of them, but the results will be less accurate. If you wish to reach maximum profitability and cost efficiency in the shortest period, consider the following criteria:

• Demographic information. It provides businesses with an essential user background, in particular, age, gender, marital status, race, religion, ethnicity, income. It doesn’t require an in-depth analysis, so this data is easy to collect.
• Geographic information. It means user location. This kind of data is especially important since it provides local businesses with more opportunities. For example, a company that offers surfing equipment may exclude nordic countries while creating an ad campaign and focus their efforts on the South to break down the budget wisely.
• Psychographic information. This piece of data includes users’ traits, lifestyle, social class, beliefs, interests and preferences, hobbies. That is a chance to dig deeper and know your audience better. You may get this information from a customer preference center, ask via email, or analyze their behavior on your website.
• Behavioral information. To gather this information, you should monitor the way users interact with your website and create campaigns based on items they view and add to their shopping cart. This way, you will be at the right time and place to convert leads into clients.

Now when you are familiar with the types, have a look at how to identify the right audience.

Target audience analysis is the process of investigating the way your consumers interact with a product to create a buyer persona. Luckily, companies today have unlimited access to high shares of data on their potential and existing buyers. It is possible to retrieve such information digitally. Online tools are the most effective way to evaluate your audience based on statistics. Here are the top-recommended resources.

Facebook & Instagram Tools

The insights from these popular social networks are one of the best ways to assess the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns and choose proper audiences.

If using Facebook for your business goals correctly, you can filter the potential clients and understand the current needs of your target audience. After all, these two social networks represent the interests and needs of the users.

You can gather and review metrics in various groups and communities. Facebook and Instagram both allow narrowing down the audience by choosing demographics, interests, age, gender, and more. Use filters wisely to create ads on these social networks. Instagram business tools, as well as Facebook instruments, can also help to launch and promote events related to your product.

Google Analytics & In-Market Segments

An excellent example is a team of consumers who are looking for the best restaurant or sightseeing attractions in their town to visit. This category of buyers tends to find many options, compare and contrast them based on the critical reviews and customer feedback. Search engines track the entire search process, and you may use Google Analytics to evaluate such actions.

Affinities

Coming back to Google Analytics, there is another option for businesses. That is called Affinities. The idea is to analyze an individual’s lifestyle and hobbies to obtain an overall picture of their habits and possible demands. Such metrics allow predicting how the preferences and needs of the specific person may change over time. It is essential to learn what people who look for your product or service may also be interested in.

Email segmentation

This instrument makes it possible to segment subscribers with the help of subscription forms and email campaigns. While the tools mentioned above refer more to analytics, this one is best used when you already know who you target or at least have an idea.

SendPulse is focused on effective email marketing. Even once you have the data and stats necessary to come up with a message for your customers, it is not that easy to craft a targeted email campaign. Often, third-party services like SendPulse might be more effective than trying to do everything on your own.

The service also offers a statistical analysis based on campaign performance. Businesses can track opens and clicks that allow monitoring the results and improving the existing strategies. Once you know the audience for sure, you can customize and personalize emails so that your clients will feel special.

How to Find Your Target Audience Fast

First of all, you should answer the following questions:

What is the expected age group?
Is your audience made of men or women (or both)?
Where is the target audience mostly located?
What are they interested in?

You can also consider some smaller details to get more. Stick to these six steps while analyzing the answers to the questions above:

1. Observe your current clients.
2. Study the competitors using SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats), A/B testing, and PEST analysis (political, economic, socio-cultural, and technological).
3. Come up with buyer personas.
4. Select locations and regions that you plan to focus on.
5. Pick personal characteristics of the potential customer.
6. Analyze and revise the segmented audience.

Then, the rest of the pieces of one big puzzle will fall into place faster and simpler. You should also take into account the useful sources of information for your decision-making process.

What are the most effective strategies used to make your marketing campaigns work?

They depend on the target audience heavily. Check out some common tips below.

1. Listen to what they say. Pay attention to the needs of your potential customers. The good idea is to spend more time with the representatives of your target audience and try to find out their demands and preferences.
2. Talk to them directly. If you are too shy to communicate with potential buyers directly, use social networks. You may also hire advertising gurus to create a compelling message.
3. Build trust and credibility. Emphasize that you are an officially registered entity and that you have the necessary guarantees. You should provide some success stories, cases, and customer reviews to increase your credibility.
4. Change the message. You should be ready to rebrand at any time. The needs of modern buyers often change, taking into account the dynamic world. That is why you should always keep up-to-date with the trends.
5. Pick the right promotional channel. Analyze different avenues to discover which one works better with your audience. You may choose several platforms that help pursue different goals. Make sure that you don’t duplicate promotions on these channels; otherwise, you risk to become annoying.

Now, when you know target audience types, ways to analyze, and practical tips, start segmenting your audience with SendPulse!

References

1. In this article, you'll get to know how to identify your target audience.
2. The article considers six steps to conduct audience research.
3. The article takes into consideration the target audience segmentation, the difference between the target market and target audience, provides six steps to define your target audience, and offers two examples.

Last Updated: 23.03.2023