When it comes to purchasing decisions, the customer is in complete control, and, as a result, businesses need to build targeted and tailored experiences for customers if they want to stand apart from the competition.
When businesses have a thorough grasp of their ideal customer, they are better able to make informed judgments about how to proceed with their marketing efforts. This means that before developing any marketing strategy, you first need to determine your target audience and understand the audience demographics.
So whether you are just starting your business, launching a new product or service, or simply trying to grow your Instagram account, for example, the topic of how to identify target audience should be your top priority if you want to set yourself up for success.
To lend you a helping hand, in this article, we’ve outlined 5 methods to help you identify your target audience, regardless of what you are trying to achieve with your marketing efforts.
Learn More About Your Current Customers
It’s helpful to begin by identifying and learning more about your current customers. Given that they are the foundation of your business, this will be a logical place to start. Your existing customers can be an invaluable resource in helping you to identify who your target audience is for your product or service. This is a more reliable way to identify your target audience than relying on guesses or intuition.
In order to increase your revenue, you have to attract several different types of people: leads who follow you on social media, those who sign up for your email list and who consent to text messages, those who have performed some qualifying action, such as visiting a landing page for a specific product, and current customers and subscribers who have stopped receiving your emails.
Identify the Pain Points in Your Market
You can then begin analyzing your market’s pain points. Pain points vary by niche, but in general, they include losing money, wasting time, difficulty with labor, difficulty with a tech learning curve, and poor user experience.
Popular pain points across various industries include difficulty integrating a product with other applications, poor customer service, and payment issues. Within those categories, your audience may experience specific pain points. For example, with poor customer service, users might complain about their concerns not being addressed in a timely or satisfactory manner.
This can then help you to determine if there are any gaps in the market that your business can fill to attract the unsatisfied customers of your competitors.
Describe the Value Your Brand Offers
When you describe the problems your audience faces and how your brand can solve those, it shows that you understand their needs. Benefits vary by market segment, but your brand should focus on saving money, time, and labor; making product adoption easier, and improving user experience.
Different segments of your audience will have different ideas about what they like and dislike about your product. When marketing to an audience as a whole, it is best to present the benefits of a product or service. However, when addressing individual customers, it is more effective to provide benefits tailored to their needs.
Creating Personas Is Helpful in Understanding Your Customers
Your target audience is made up of people from various backgrounds. Developing a buyer’s persona can help you understand them better. It’s particularly helpful if your product appeals to a wide variety of customers. A persona can help you identify your target audience (who they are, what are their interests) and develop a message to reach them.
Market researchers create buyer personas by reviewing data, surveys, and other information about the audience. Marketers typically develop between three to five personas when working with social media.
Determine Who Your Audience Believes
When you know who your ideal customer is and which sites they trust, you will be able to identify the thought leaders in your field. This works by using the authority of these experts to convince your audience to accept yours as a trustworthy source as well.
For example, if you want to get people to buy your software, consider giving complimentary copies to those who are leaders in their field. Conversely, citing experts in your articles can give them credibility.
Final Words
Targeting your content according to your audience’s characteristics will allow you to provide them with the information they want, in a way that conforms with who they are, and helps build long-term relationships. When you identify your target audience, you can better design a marketing campaign that appeals to those people
