Directing your marketing strategy to your target audience is imperative.
Not only does it give you a clear objective when you’re planning marketing campaigns, but it should save you a lot of time and money too. And with paid media ad revenue in the UK exceeding £34bn, it’s important to get your tactics right.
In the following guide, we’ve explained what a target audience is and why it’s crucial to identify one – before giving our top tips for fine-tuning the process.
What is a target audience?
Target audience is collective term used for the consumers who are likely to use your products or services. But as your brand grows, it also includes promoters who influence other people on your products and the potential customers you could attract.
Where target audience is concerned, any original marketer should focus on three main goals:
- Identifying a target audience
- Driving online engagement and organic traffic by presenting a unique offering
- Increasing conversion rates, ultimately building a loyal client base
Why is it important to identify a target audience?
Identifying, defining, and knowing your target audience is vital for every aspect of your marketing planning. A firm grasp on your audience can also formulate a solid pay-per-click (PPC) campaign.
Once you’ve started advertising, using pay-per-click services could help to provide invaluable insights on the customers spending the most time on your website. It’s essential to pinpoint specific data for a successful PPC campaign, but it’s not always easy to incorporate this without professional advice.
How do I find my target audience?
As a priority, you should undertake local market research and look into your current customer base. This can help you take advantage of your future marketing budget to keep revenue coming.
To help you find and identify your target audience, you could use the following steps:
- Use social media to your advantage
Utilising social media should inform the process of defining your audience. You can implement geotargeted ads to trial success rates in local areas.
With Instagram for Business, you could also monitor your audience by keeping an eye on key metrics and statistics. You’ll also be able to work out which areas lead to the most conversions and which ones generate repeat visits too.
- Interrogate
You’ll need to ask yourself a few questions. Critical thinking can be incredibly constructive, especially when it comes to identifying patterns and trends in your customer base.
Try to consider your most popular product or service. Once you’ve identified that, think about which type of customer benefits from what you offer – and what makes you stand out amongst your competitors.
- Reflect
Next, you should examine your findings and start thinking about your company message. This should align with your company purpose and summarise the benefit of the services you offer.
Once you understand what makes type of client who most benefits from your business, you should start targeting similar groups. Key data fields to collect include age, locations, hobbies, and spoken languages.
- Review
As with any type of marketing strategy, constant review is paramount. Customer attitudes and shopping patterns change over time, so your marketing strategy will need to be versatile.
Keeping tabs not just on your client behaviour but your own eCommerce performance is absolutely vital. With an open-minded approach, regularly reviewing and updating your marketing strategy will keep it closely in line with the needs of your target audience.
Final thoughts…
As a process, identifying a target audience might vary depending on the product or service that your brand offers. However, identifying your audience correctly enables your company to concentrate its marketing efforts on the most vital focus areas.
