One of the very first things when venturing to start an online business - or even a physical one - is to have a clear idea of the people you’re going to be targeting. A target market strategy will effectively get the message to the right people.
A target audience is a group of consumers who you want to reach with your targeted marketing efforts. Your ideal customer group can be characterised by multiple factors that can be as vague or as specific as you wish.
And more.
Tip: To see optimum results we do advise narrowing your target audience down to the dot.
These groups are the key influencers in the decision-making processes for marketing strategies. A target audience of a business decides how to appeal to them, where to spend the budget and what commodity to build next.
Once your target audience is defined, you could also go a step further in defining your buyer personas. A buyer persona is the ideal target audience profile that a business wishes to target based on the data collected from the target audience.
The information helps businesses understand their audience and it’s purchasing behaviours. Targeting a specific audience will help in conveying your message to the right audience who will relate most to your message.
Let’s take a stationery item for students as an example. Given that the item is mainly for students, we have our first distinction. If the product is priced higher, the students would be divided into households with specific incomes. Not to mention, if it is targeted specifically to girls, the demographic would be further narrowed down even more.
So now we have school-going girls belonging to a household with x-amount of monthly income.
This is a target audience for a product aimed at upper-class school-going girls. While the business may target boys, or adults even, it may not be the best choice because they would be least likely to purchase it.
The people in your target audience could be anyone but what would tie them together is an interest in the product you offer.
The terms target market and the audience may sound synonymous and they do refer to mainly the same thing. Still, businesses and marketers must know the difference.
Both terms revolve around dividing larger groups into sub-segments. However, target markets pertain to a larger group of consumers that the business targets and the target audience are a further breakdown of said group based on interests, buying history and demographics.
Safe to say, you can define your target market by first detecting your target audience. For example, if a target market is “fashion students aged 18-30” the target audience would be “fashion students living in New York City, aged 18-30”.
A business can have more than one type of audience. The two can be classified as:
A primary target audience is a group that will get most of a business’s attention as they are most likely to become valuable and loyal customers.
The secondary target audience on the other hand is a group who may be interested in a product and have common characteristics with your primary target audience but there’s an improbability for them to become valuable customers.
This group may not directly include the ideal buyer persona but influencers of their decision-making process too.
Children are sometimes a part of the secondary target audience for products targeted towards parents. Also, having a defined secondary cluster of customers can help businesses shape their marketing. Mainly if a business sells more than one product, the overlapping interest between the two groups can appeal to the secondary audience rather than the primary.
Identifying your target audience can streamline a tonne of processes for a business. Which include but are not limited to
Just as a vegan food business has its ideal clients so does a steakhouse. Defining the market that needs your services can help understand it and place the product and service accordingly.
The research becomes the pillar on which the marketing of said business can stand. Casting the net wide and encompassing a broad array of consumer base may seem like the best approach initially but it can severely hamper growth and marketing efforts.
It’s important to realise how a brand’s message may not resonate with everyone, thus focusing time and resources on a clearly outlined segment can be more rewarding and productive for an organisation.
Engagement being directly proportional to ROI is one of the most widespread social media marketing myths.
Absolutely no. When a business makes the effort to successfully identify who its target audience is, a focused approach can maximise ROI significantly. For example, when targeting social media users a narrowed approach can bring better results when targeted with tailored content.
Social media targeting is one of the most popular and rewarding approaches being implemented by businesses all around.
When a business finds the audience that is most likely to convert, creating content that addresses their challenges, concerns and apprehensions can help in tipping the scales.
Rather than focusing on an audience that may engage with your efforts but isn’t willing to open their wallets, it is better to utilise resources and position your strategy to cater to those who will.
A single business of course has different types of audiences. We suggest identifying what stage of the buyer journey your customers are on and reaching out with relevant content. Similarly, another approach could be pushing content according to the sales-funnel stage prospective customers are at.
Consumer A might be looking for some help in deciding whereas consumer B may need to be educated from scratch.
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