7 Ways To Identify The Right Target Audience For Your Brand –

Starting up a business doesn’t rely solely on having the right products and services to sell or offer. Although this is an excellent start to establish your business, the other side of it requires you to spot the right audience or market to sell to. Focusing on who to target is critical to your business success. And this is a crucial part of the business, especially in the early phase of starting.

Identifying the target market or audience these days becomes more accessible as strategies are more developed and modern. Creating a great user experience is reliant on how much you understand your target. Hence, it’s important to know your goal in every step of the way.

Also Read – Why Technology is Considered as a Boon to Digital Marketing?

There are different ways to identify the perfect target market for your brand. Check out the 7 ways to identify the right target audience for your brand as below –

1. Create a User Persona –

Your target market has specific characteristics that explain why they’ll buy your products. Establishing an ideal customer profile, also known as a user persona, is the first step in identifying these prospects. When your startup business is still unsure who to target precisely, this strategy will work effectively. You can either grow this data or revise them from time to time. Your targeted demographics are presented in these profiles, so take note of the following information needed to be added in the profiles:

• Gender

Your brand will typically appeal to either more men, more women, both genders, or even other types of genders. It’s imperative to know which specific types of gender groups react positively or negatively to your brand. It’s generally considered that men and women have strikingly different goals and needs, so your brand may not satisfy all genders. If you can’t differentiate the genders between your target audience, it might be challenging to address customer needs later on. 

• Age 

The second most important aspect to include in a user persona is age. From what generation do your customers belong? Who do they represent? Are your prospects middle-aged and from generation X? Are they millennials or older adults from the baby boomer generation? The design and marketing of your product need to cater to the preferences of different age groups. When you can detect the suitable age group your brand appeals to, you can customize features and functions better to suit their needs. 

• Income Level

It should directly influence your marketing strategy to know how much disposable income your customers have. It’s always effective to know how financially capable your prospective buyers are. Savings-oriented products and services are attractive to low-income families while people who earn more prefer to spend more on luxurious items and services. 

• Geographics

People living in urban areas tend to have different buying habits than those who live in rural areas. This is a realistic observation that may apply even in many other countries. This tendency might have been impacted their communities and local culture within regions and cities. 

Some who live in their respective hometowns decide on their purchases based on their family, working conditions, neighborhood, personal hobbies, and interests, among others. To develop more concrete data about geographics and their purchasing tendencies, you can conduct further market research. 

2. Execute An Effective Market Research –

Market research can help you effectively identify your target audience. Thanks to technological advancements, this approach can be conducted in various manners, resulting in more accurate customer profiling. Here are some of the ways:

• Market Surveys 

There are many ways market surveys are now being conducted. Gone are the days where they only come in paper and need to hire a team to spread the surveys on the streets. Now, online surveys have become a foolproof alternative to paper surveys. Online marketing always gives your business an immediate boost.

By asking your customers directly for feedback, you can gather helpful information. A quick and effective way to do that is through online SMS messaging. Then, when you’re planning your next marketing campaign, you’ll be able to use that to adjust your service and strategy.

• Personal Interviews 

Find out what your customers’ purchasing habits are and ask them for their opinions. This is relatively conventional but will always work wonders. It’s a more straightforward approach since you can learn about your customers’ ideas directly. People tend to be more honest and genuine with their thoughts when asked through interviews. 

• Focus Groups And Forums

Discussions and Q&A sessions are effective in researching more of who your target audience is. By asking a specific group, you’ll know what they think and how they perceive your brand.

Applying these tactics will enable you to discover your target audience and know how to improve your products and services. This is why these strategies aren’t a one-time thing. Customer and market research must be done from time to time to create updates for your brand and your target audience. 

3. Identify The Market Your Brand Won’t Be Targeting –

As mentioned, your products and services will only appeal to certain people. You won’t be able to expect everyone to participate in your surveys or market research. Knowing the people who aren’t your target audience will benefit your business as it can save you money and time. You can bypass marketing to these groups and focus more on your prospects instead. 

Identify your audience precisely and exclude anyone who isn’t your target. When you know which generation, age group, or gender isn’t likely to buy your product, you can eliminate them in your marketing campaigns. 

4. Profile Your Existing Customers –

To get more insight into your target audience, it’s easiest to examine your existing customers first. You may already have a few customers as soon as you opened your business. Knowing who they are can speak volumes to what kind of market you should be focusing on. Your loyal customers can determine the types of people you should target with your brand and products. Talk to them when you have the opportunity to do so.

Whenever your clients buy a product, ask them for feedback and keep records of their responses. You might also ask them to fill out a survey and hand out some freebies if they do so. Knowing how to please them more will hook them to your business in a more extended period, increasing their chances of conducting word of mouth strategy. This will help expand your business more. 

5. Delve into Your Products And Services –

Knowing who to target goes right back to what kind of products and services you offer. The essential thing is to dive into your offerings and identify the strengths and weaknesses. Know what the primary benefits are that’s promising enough for your customers. Highlight these advantages so you can focus on them as selling points. 

More customers will be attracted to a company with reliable products because they’ll believe it’s trustworthy and professional. When you’ve defined your benefits, you can check which customers have those specific needs. 

6. Know And Study Your Competitors 

The audience you should be targeting can be revealed by watching and observing your direct competitors. Knowing the industry your competitor belongs to will expose you to which industry to play in. As you follow their operations and strategies, you’ll notice who their customers are. Studying your competition can help you achieve business success.

You can potentially do two things while observing your competitors. One is to follow their target prospects and conduct marketing campaigns for them. The other one is to spot your competitors’ untapped market, or those they haven’t reached out to yet. 

Analyzing your direct and indirect competitors is an excellent way to assess their strengths and weaknesses. When you have this analysis, you can better decide what action plan to take next to stay competitive in your industry. 

7. Address Pain Points And Needs –

It’s all about understanding customer pain points and their purchase processes. It’s critical that during your market research, you pay attention not only to defining your target market but also to their different concerns and pain points. Each market group will have its buying power and different purchasing approaches.

Knowing how to satisfy their needs will better provide products or services that they’ll most likely avail of. The user personas also come in handy since you can segregate their different pain points depending on their data and information. A tailored key message and content speaking directly to these personas will inspire them to move down the sales funnel more quickly. 

Conclusion –

The various ways mentioned above are now in your hands to identify and build your ideal target audience. Take note that when you know who to target, your business operations will proceed more smoothly, allowing you to focus more on conducting marketing campaigns to generate leads and convert them into sales.

During this process, you may have discovered details about your target audience you hadn’t anticipated or contrary to what you assumed. As you go through this process, you must allow your mind to be open and trust that there’d be more audience as a result of comprehensive research and effective strategies. Over time, you’ll enjoy increased conversions, customer engagement, and customer loyalty. Consider the ideas mentioned here as you strategize for your next campaign.

Author Bio –

Tanya Perez is an expert in digital marketing and is currently employed at Body Toning. She loves blogging about fashion, lifestyle, digital marketing, and anything related to entrepreneurship. She’s a happy mom, who loves to spend time with her kids, and her two dogs. During her free time, she’d go camping with her family and enjoy some time off from urban living.

Also Read – What is The Importance of Digital Marketing to Small Businesses?