How-To Tuesday: Finding Your Target Audience
Written on June 30, 2009 by admin
Do you really know who your target audience is? Please don’t say “everyone.” It’s important to drill down and determine exactly who buys your products and how they like to be marketed to. Today’s how-to will help you do just that.
Step 1: Make a list
Make a list of all the attributes of your ideal client. Make her/him into a character, if that helps. If it’s important to understanding your target, describe the kind of clothes she wears, what she enjoys doing, what she eats, where she lives. Also how old she is and how much money she makes are key. If you sell high end jewelry, you are probably not selling to broke college kids.
Step 2: Look at where she shops
Now that you have the first list, make another list of where that person would shop. Banana Republic or Wal-Mart? Macy’s or Target? This can give you an idea of how your audience makes its shopping decisions. A Wal-Mart shopper is probably swayed more by price than brand loyalty, while Banana Republic shoppers are likely to stay loyal to the brand.
I know it may be difficult to come up with some of this information, but don’t be afraid to generalize or assume, if you have nothing in the way of research.
Step 3: Do some research
Visit Google Ad Planner to get statistics to help you if you’re looking to promote online (and of course you are!). I’ve written about this resource before, so go back and study it. It will help you search for the websites that your demographic (based on age, income, education, and/or geography) visit the most. This can help you decide what websites you need to have a presence on.
It’s important to know how your target audience likes to be marketed to. If the results show up that your demographic is heavily into Facebook, then it’s a no brainer that you need to be on there. It doesn’t matter if you’re not into Facebook: if you want to sell, you have to speak your customers’ language.
You can also research those companies you listed in step 2 and see what their websites and ad campaigns look like. If they’re motivated by sales, that needs to be part of your marketing strategy. If they are brand oriented, you need to work on building your brand so that customers become evangelists.
Need help figuring out your target audience? Let’s brainstorm together.
