Identifying your Target Market

Target Audience/Market - Episode 4

Did you know that every year, nearly 37 billion dollars are wasted on ads that are not tailored to the target audience? That's insane.

What should a personal brand or business owner do first? Its purpose is to identify their intended audience. Otherwise, you'll waste money marketing to people who don't care about your product or service.

The demographic of people most likely to be interested in a company's product or service is referred to as its target audience. Target audiences share demographic characteristics such as, but not limited to:

1.?????Age

2.?????Gender

3.?????Location

4.?????Education

5.?????Socioeconomic status

As a business, identifying your target audience can help you craft marketing strategies and define your core customers. Rather than wasting money and resources trying to cater to every consumer, defining a target audience allows for more intentional and personal outreach to those who are most likely to buy your product or service.

The best way to find your target audience is by first thinking about the specific needs your product or service fulfills. It's important to identify the pain point, and then determine who has those pain points. For example, if you've learned that creating websites is a hassle and start a business that designs websites, your next step would be to find out who needs a website that would likely have trouble creating one. In this scenario, your target audience is likely small business owners.

The more precise your demographic identification of your target audience, the more effectively you can advertise to them. In this case, it would be best to target small business owners who are less technically savvy. Instead of considering small business owners as your target audience, consider small business owners over a certain age in a specific location.

If your product is very general, you will not need to conduct as much market research to find your target audience. If your target audience is more specific, it's critical to collect data on your customers so you can narrow your focus. One method for gathering data is to offer a discount or coupon code to visitors to your website or business in exchange for completing a survey that collects the information you require.

Target audiences help businesses advertise more efficiently as you know who your target audience is and how to reach them. While it's important to reach as many people as possible, and it often seems like focusing only on specific?segments of the population?is limiting, you need to reach potential consumers directly.?

Reaching out to those who are interested in your product or service directly will result in more money in your pocket. As a result, before deciding on your message and how to deliver it, you must first determine who will be receiving it. People must be able to relate to the tone and content of a message in order to purchase a product or service. A personal connection is formed and trust is established when you strike a chord with someone.

For example, just because you sell sustainable clothing doesn't mean you can't sell to everyone. However, because sustainable clothing is usually a little pricey, you won't be able to get everyone to buy from your brand. So, if you market to people who are passionate about climate change, sustainability, zero-waste, and so on, you will be able to increase your sales. They identify with your brand values and will purchase from you despite the higher price.

So, the next time you consider starting a business, developing a personal brand, or communicating a value you have, whether for monetization or not, consider researching for a specific audience that fits your purpose.