How to Determine Your Target Audience

It’s time to put your researcher’s cap on because you need to find the target audience for your business. That audience is made up of the people who are most likely to engage with your services or products. It’s important to know who and where they are.

Creating a Customer Persona

Knowing who you’re trying to connect with is one of the most basic elements of a successful marketing strategy. To identify your ideal customers, break them down by category.

1. Age: Your marketing efforts will be received differently by a millennial than a Baby Boomer.
2. Income: Your audience’s disposable income will contribute to their interest in what you’re promoting. Is your product a luxury item or intended for the cost-conscious?
3. Location: Where we live plays a role in our purchasing preferences. Is your target audience in urban centers or rural towns? Each audience will have different salary levels and expectations of service.

Do Your Homework

Do you want to attract more of the same types of customers you have or go after a different audience? Either way, you can gather information about your target audience using these tools:

• Surveys
• Focus groups
• Interviews

Your current customers are excellent sources of information on what your company has to offer, so capture their outside perspective.

If you want to understand your audience, you must think like them. Where do they live, work and shop? What kind of media do they consume? What problems do they have that your company can solve?

You can also learn from your competitors. Monitor what they sell and what they don’t sell. Are they leaving customer needs unfulfilled? If you learn who they’re targeting, you may want to fine-tune or redefine the audience you’re pursuing.

Using Digital Ad Platforms

Searching for a target audience effectively means utilizing all your available resources, including digital advertising platforms.

Digital ad platforms provide you with the means to create A and B testing groups, or they can optimize your audience for you. Their algorithms will ensure your ads are placed in front of those who are more likely to engage with your content. Some platforms even create “look-alike audiences” by comparing your imported customer data and matching it with people in their database.

Let TouchStone help you define your target audience marketing strategy. Contact us to learn more about our digital and content marketing services.