5 Tips on How to Define Your Ideal Target Market

Target Market is a crucial strategy in digital marketing and is a critical part of running your business these days. Whether you do it yourself or hire a marketing agency to do it for you, before you proceed, you must be clear about one element of it. And that is: to whom are you addressing your marketing message? All marketing activities, including your SEO and content creation, hinge upon you knowing your target market. Fail to understand it, and you will fail at your marketing. And yet, in our work, a surprising number of organizations don’t understand this most fundamental marketing factor: whom they’re trying to sell to.

Here are some tips on how to make sure you get your digital marketing right from the get-go by nailing your customer base.

Understand your customers

Yes, you need a website because that’s your digital storefront, and you do need to optimize it, but, ultimately, in every stage of planning, creating, and promoting your content, you need to understand your customers.

You can’t market with any level of clarity and success if you don’t know to whom you’re marketing to. Your marketing message — what you’re trying to say to your prospects — stands on how well you understand your target audience.

Understanding your target market is necessary before you begin any business activities, including your marketing and SEO. Your branding should also match what your audience is looking for when it comes to your services and products.

That alignment of knowing whom you want to serve helps you plan your brand, style, and values as well as your voice and content to attract exactly the kind of client you want.

Get them to want to do business with?you

This point gets lost in all the technical aspects of keyword research, content creation and link building.

The point of it all is to make your ideal customers want to do business with you so you can serve them.

The question is how do you achieve this? The answer comes from understanding them.

Your brand should be aligned with the style they would trust, and all your content should be aligned with the questions they ask and the problems they want to solve.

Position yourself as a dependable thought?leader

A thought leader knows what they’re talking about. They know the respected names or sources to consult or reference. They know techniques and strategies both already proven and still obscure. They’ve tried things, and they continue to do so. They share their findings. They have years of experience.

Look at the influencers you look up to in your niche, and you’ll realize they have something in common.

They may not always label themselves as experts — but you trust and like them. Why? Because they’re dedicated to their craft. Whether that’s lawyering, digital marketing or kayaking, their passion is real and infectious. They’re inspiring.

So do that. Be authentic. You don’t have to be in a selling mode all the time. It’s exhausting and off-putting when someone’s always selling.

People can tell the difference between someone speaking of something they’re truly passionate about and someone speaking with the intention to pitch. Your customers can tell, too. Your videos, blogs, and podcasts: do they represent your passion and expertise, or do they just sell?

When you do what you love and contribute to your industry out of passion and commitment, you attract more quality leads and customers. If your online presence is purely transactional — all ads and no value — you lose the trust of your prospects.

Speak up. Blog about topics close to your heart that also bring value to your customers, like the current hot topics in your industry or FAQs you usually see.

And that is how you create optimized content — by studying your customers and then speaking to them in a meaningful way.

Aim to?serve

Before the days of Google Ads, the skyscraper technique, and social media marketing, and centuries before apps and digital assistants, business was all about taking care of customers.

Digital marketing consists of many parts, but they all start from a foundation of serving your customers. That’s the springboard of your business success.

Even the skyscraper technique boils down to that. You look at the top-ranking content in your topic and create something better that would serve, inform, or entertain your audience even more.

When you think of search engine optimization, it’s not just keywords. It’s your online presence itself. It’s about what your target market can gain from your online content. Knowing and serving your customers is ultimately how you gain visibility and brand awareness.

Trust the?experts

Once you understand your ideal customer, you can roll up your sleeves and start your digital marketing. Make sure you have well-trained people on your team who can execute the tasks well. If you are in doubt, a digital marketing agency might be a great solution for you. You might save a lot of time and money by hiring the experts instead of figuring out your moves through trial and error.

If you are still struggling with defining your customer base, an expert in digital marketing can help you flesh it out. Don’t skip this step. If you are stuck, reach out for help, and get started in your marketing on the right foot.