Target Audience.

Defining your target audience is one of your most important tasks.

It’s the foundation of all elements of your marketing strategy, including the features and benefits that will interest them, to the marketing channels you will use to promote your business.

Everything you do to promote your business should be done with your target audience in mind.

Once you’ve done your research and nailed down your ideal customer, you’ll find it so much easier to create content and ads that resonate with your audience.

You will even be able to predict their questions and solve their problems before they ask.

There’s a common saying in the selling world that says: “If you try to sell to everyone, then you’ll end up selling to no-one.”

The better you understand your target audience, the better you’ll be able to target them (with relevant content, messaging, and ads).

A target market is the specific group of people you want to reach with your marketing message.

They are the people who are most likely to buy your products or services.

They are united by some common characteristics, like age, gender, income, marital status, occupation, interests, and educational level.

The more clearly you define your target group, the better you can understand how and where to reach your best prospects.

A great first step in figuring out who is likely to need your products most is to identify who is already using your products or services or those that are using related products.

Once you understand the defining characteristics of your existing customer base, you can go after more people who fit the same category.

If your product is being sold online

You might request some information on your sign-up page depending on your product.

You shouldn’t overdo this so you don’t annoy your customers.

About 3 relevant questions are adequate enough to help you gain insight on who is buying your product.

So that you can target your advertisements towards people within that category.

Some data points you might want to consider are:

Age, Location, Interests, Marital Status, Profession and so on.

Selling Business to Business

If you’re selling Business to Business B2B products, your categories will look a little different.

You might want to collect information about the size of the business that buy from you and information about the titles of the people who tend to make the buying decisions.

Are you marketing to the CEO? The CTO? Production Manager?

Understanding who within the company you need to speak to is a critical first step in crafting your advertisement campaign.

Now it’s time to see how you can put your target audience research to work.

The first step is to create social ads specifically targeted to the exact market you have just defined.

You need to categorize your audience in different segments.

Create ads for each segment, this will help you understand the audience that is more interested in your product.

The results of your test may provide an additional insight you didn’t have when you first created your target market statement.

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Be sure to incorporate any lessons you learn, and revisit your target market statement regularly to make sure it still accurately describes your most valuable potential customers.

Targeting a specific market doesn’t mean that you must exclude people who don’t meet your specific criteria.

Instead, targeted marketing allows you to focus your message on the right market – and the people who are most likely to buy from you.

With a target audience definition to work with, you can spend less, and earn more by reaching the most valuable leads in your network.

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So, why is the target audience important?

The simple answer is that the channels, language, and information you use to connect with your audience might not be effective if it’s targeted at everyone.

Your target audience definition will help you to create a tone of voice that really speaks to your customer.

When you target “everybody”, you’re making it very hard for yourself to resonate with anyone on a deeper level.

Remember, the more you connect with someone, the more likely that person is to become a loyal customer of your brand.

Essentially, a target audience analysis gives you direction for your marketing, and ensures more consistency in your messaging, so you can build stronger relationships with prospects that matter.

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Exercises

List out 10 qualities of your ideal prospect.

Filter your list to select the 5 most appropriate protects for your product.