Business is all about finding the right customers and attracting them by all means possible. The difference between a successful business and a struggling business is that a successful one has managed to find the target audience while the former is still chasing after everyone.
What does the target audience mean?
A target audience can be defined as a particular group of people that are likely to purchase your products or services.
Why is it important for a business to understand its target audience?
There are many benefits of understanding the target audience as a business. Some of the common ones are: It will give direction on how to spend advertising money, helps in how to attract customers, and also guide you on what specific services or products to offer.
What are the qualities of a target audience for a business?
There are several qualities exhibited by a target audience. They include gender, age, socioeconomic status, location, interests, values and motivations, purchasing habits, occupation among others.
Your target audience basically determines the market strategy you will use. Besides, a target audience is crucial in helping your marketing campaign to succeed. If you are able to choose the right target audience, then your business will grow significantly.
Below are 6 tips for finding a target audience:
- Check your existing customer base
One of the best ways in finding your target audience is by looking at your current customers. After determining who they are, find out why they purchase from you. You should also check for their qualities such as age, location, interests, occupation among others.
This will guide you in coming up with an effective marketing strategy. For example, if you realize that most of your customers are below the age of 35, then you will devise ways of attracting more customers.
- Google Analytics
Google Analytics is another great way of determining your target audience. This is because it offers a lot of insights and information with regard to the demographics of your audience.
To be able to access such information about existing customers, your websites have to be linked with a Google Analytics account.
- Check out on your competitors
This is also another easy way of identifying your target audience. There’s no doubt that you share the same customers with your competitors. This, therefore, makes your work easier. All you have to do is find out who are their existing customers? Who are they targeting?
However, you should not copy everything they are doing. If you conduct thorough market research, then you may discover a niche market.
- Take advantage of pf social media analytics
Social media platforms can also provide vital information about your target audience. Besides demographics, social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter offer great insights regarding consumer interest.
For example, Facebook Insight is rich with behavioral and psychographic information.
- Come up with a market research survey
The best way to learn more about your customers is to go directly to them. As a business, you should learn to regularly send research surveys to your current customers.
You can then take that advantage to ask pertinent questions such as their age, income level, location, preferences among others.
- Analyze your services of products
Take time and jot down the characteristics of each of your products or services. Against each characteristic, list down its benefits. For example, a website designer creates high-quality websites. This is important for the image and reputation of the company.
As soon as you have all the benefits, create a list of all the people that could be in need of what your services or product fulfills. For instance, a website designer can choose to target businesses seeking to increase their online presence.
Bottom line
Finding a target audience is at the center of any marketing strategy. If you are able to identify your target audience, then growing your business becomes easy.
