Before you start to advertise, identifying a target audience is crucial. Choose your core customer base to properly gear your campaigns and determine who that audience is. All marketing should be tailored to that specific group, as they’ll be more likely to engage with your brand.
These audiences are the people you believe are most likely to purchase your offerings and benefit from them. They'll also more likely want to develop a long relationship with your brand as loyal customers.
The following are some helpful techniques to guide you to determine how to find a target audience.
Pare Down the Demographics of Your Audience
Start by getting specific about the details of the people you want to target. This will entail figuring out which demographics apply to your customer base and, in turn, help you reach them more easily.
By conducting research into your target audience and looking into existing customers and others in your market, you can pinpoint details such as:
- Gender
- Age and generation
- Income level and occupation
- Interests
- Marital and family status
You can also look at people's behaviors, which may pertain to buying habits or their lifestyle in general—such as when they’re more likely to engage with certain programming or visit specific social media platforms. In addition, look at other brands that your target audience is interacting with, including competitors.
Looking at all of these details can paint a complete picture of your audience and individual segments.
Make More Specific Target Personas
To build a solid profile of your target audience, develop unique target personas for each segment. A buyer or target persona is a fictional representation of your audience, complete with a personality and narrative that form a single hypothetical person you'll want to target.
When developing specific target personas, segment your audience into two or three parts, each of which you can turn into a separate persona. Get as detailed as possible with these personas, including their pain points and what they want or need from your offerings. It helps to visualize your target personas as realistic but semi-fictional characters who accurately represent your ideal customers.
With hyper-targeted personas, you'll have a deep understanding of the people you're trying to connect with through your marketing.
Find Out Where Your Target Audience Is
To reach your target audience with advertising, you also need to know where to find them.
For example, if you're a local brand and want to hone in on residents in your service areas, know where to find them both geographically and online. Figure out where you'll advertise locally with more traditional media such as billboards and TV spots.
At the same time, build a strong online presence with tons of visibility, seeing as this is where most people will find you. Find out what social media platforms your audiences use most, such as Facebook for B2C customers and LinkedIn for B2B customers. Also, find out what times people are likely to be on, whether it's the morning, afternoon, or evening.
Consider what types of content your audiences consume most. For example, some audiences may prefer to watch a lot of short video content, so they may be good candidates for OTT or native advertising. Meanwhile, others may respond better to email marketing and read blogs. You can then develop the type of content that will best connect with audiences on the appropriate channels.
Fine-Tune with Feedback
You can better reach your niche audience by learning from them directly. If you have at least a small following of customers, ask them for feedback. Audiences may provide this feedback in various forms, including surveys, contact forms, or social media comments.
Customer feedback can provide you with insights into understanding your current audience if you want to expand and attract more. In the process, you can ask people how they found you. You can also ask how they prefer interacting with your brand and whether they follow you on social media.
Based on this feedback, you can make any necessary adjustments to your campaigns to improve their targeting.
Reach Your Target Audiences with the Help of WNEM Marketing
By optimizing your targeting, you'll have a better chance of establishing a strong connection with audiences of multiple types. Taking the time to pinpoint demographics, build personas, find out where your audiences are, and request feedback will supercharge your marketing efforts.
If you need some assistance with researching to find your target personas, the experts at WNEM Marketing can help. We can better identify and connect with audiences through highly targeted marketing campaigns that yield your desired results. In the meantime, you'll be able to focus on growing your business.
Get in touch with WNEM Marketing today to start your next strategy.
