One of the first steps a business should take is to identify its target audience. A target audience is the group of people who are most likely to have an interest in your business, product, or service. They’re the people you should be tailoring your adverts towards.
Below are 7 solid steps on how to find your target audience for your brand and create the best content/ads
How to Find Your Target Audience for Your Brand
1. Analyze Your Customer Base
You can look at your current customer base to get an idea of who your target audience is. Assess the people who are buying your product to figure out how to attract more of them. Look at their age range, their interests, where they live, and their lifestyles. You can do this by sending out customer surveys, or asking for feedback. You should ask them to not only give feedback on your product but on your brand overall. Ask questions about your logo, website, and social media channels.
2. Look At Industry Trends
You should examine and assess the market research and trends within your industry. Use them to look at whether there are holes, flaws, or gaps in your industry, and how your product can fill them. Compare your products to your competitors’ products, and compare your marketing to theirs. Look at who they are targeting, and how you could do it better. You should assess every aspect of their marketing – are they marketing online, or offline? What social media channels do they use?
3. Create A Buyer Persona
Some marketers find it helps to create a buyer persona from the data you’ve collected. You will need to create a few personas to represent each of your customer bases. Each persona will be different, and you’ll need to include things like age, gender, favorite hobbies, books, job, and lifestyle. Marketers usually recommend that you create somewhere between three and five personas. Be specific, as your buyer personas will also help you define who your target audience isn’t. You want to focus your efforts on people who will act on any call to action, not people who will ignore it.
4. Web Analytics
Website analytics will be a very helpful tool as you define your target market. These metrics will show you data on the users currently on your site. You can look at insights on where your audience is coming from, what content they engage with most, and where they spend the most amount time on your website. If you have a physical product to sell on your website, you should also check your cart abandonment rates and develop a strategy to target those potential customers.
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5. Media Kits
Some publishers will give you a media kit which details the audience segments that the publisher reaches. They break the segments down in the same way as a buyer persona is broken down into things like age, job title, hobbies, and income. These statistics can help you decide which publications are read by your target audience.
6. Social Media
Don’t forget about social media ads. These can be targeted to different demographics, and interests matching those of your target audience. Try not to limit yourself to only one platform as some of your potential buyers may respond better on another platform.
7. Nielsen Ratings
Another good idea is to examine the Nielsen ratings if you’re planning on running any television adverts. The Nielsen rating predicts what type of people will be interested in a certain show. You should look for niche shows that match your industry. The ads will be cheaper than prime-time ads, but you’ll also be more likely to reach people who are more interested in your business. You’ll also want to place your ad either at the start of the ad breaks or at the end. People are likely to record shows and fast forward through the ads, but this way there is more chance of your ad getting viewed by a larger audience interested in your ad.
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