Target Audience and Its Importance

The Target Audience is a part of the society for whom your company or business directs its marketing actions regarding products or services. It’s a group of people that has similar objectives, interests, social status, etc.

It seems rather simple, right? Basically, the target audience is a slice of the population that has everything to do with your company’s interests. This audience may or may not be diversified.

Getting to know your target audience is imperative for the success of any business. After all, only by comprehending very well the profile of your customer, you’ll be capable of establishing an efficient communication and develop products and services that will fulfill their specific needs.

One way of getting closer to your consumer to understand how their profile is, is to analyze their problems, doubts and wishes. By doing this, you’ll be able to approach them by hitting the root of their problems directly, showing them how your products or services are the best option to fulfill their need.

Another important detail that must be considered: The target audience is not just the final consumer, but everyone that are impacted by your brand and that, one way or another, has some kind of participation on the purchase decision. A toy manufacturer, for example, has children as their final consumers, however the marketing strategy should not be focused on them. After all, the decision makers are their parents. Therefore, the creation of these products and strategies must include characteristics that will please both these profiles.

You may be directing your effort towards a public that different from yours and, therefore, you haven’t been getting no return whatsoever, any profit or engagement. Think about it. It was already proven that it is a lot better to segment and direct the content and actions of your brand to a specific audience rather than to several different audiences.

Differences Between Persona and Target Audience

The definition of Target Audience is focused on general features of your client, whilst the definition of Persona seeks to comprehend a little deeper what are their issues, doubts and objectives, educating them until they’re ready to obtain your products.

Target audience is a group of people or organizations with the same profile, or at least a similar profile as consumers. 

The most used information to define Target Audience of a company are usually: 

• Age
• Sex
• Scholar Degree
• Income
• Social Class
• Location
• Consuming Habits

Here’s an example of Target Audience: Women, between 20 and 30 years old, living in New York, with a bachelor’s degree, belongs to social class B, has an income in between $1000 and $2000, likes fashion and interior decoration.

Persona is the profile of someone that would be your ideal customer. It’s a person who can be interested for what you have to offer, considering they relate to your brand and you must put your effort to make them your loyal customer.

It’s a much more deeper research containing a lot more details than the Target Audience, and it usually contains:

• Personal features
• Income
• Lifestyle
• Interests
• Social Media engagement/usage
• Professional Information

Here’s an example of Persona: Mary, 22 years old, blogger. Lives in Brooklyn, in New York. Graduated in Journalism, owns a blog and posts a lot of makeup tutorials, and also tips on fashion and interior decoration. She always attends to fashion events in the region and often meets with people that are involved in these segments. She’s a digital influencer and cares a lot about what kind of content people will see on her social medias. During her free time, she likes to practice outdoor activities and go to the gym.

How to define your Target Audience?

1. Ask questions to your current customers:

• Which goals are you trying to reach?
• What are the problems that are stopping you from achieving your goals?
• What are your main sources of information?
• What are your expectations regarding my product and service?

2. Use any research you may have already done on your audience, or relevant information you have based on research

3. Understand what are the requirements to consume your products and services

4. Register all information on a single document

After asking some of these questions and coming up with a profile, it gets a lot easier to find the key words to communicate better with them, therefore decreasing chances of flaws on your communication.

When creating content for your blog, websites or social media, you’ll already know how to have a better and stronger communication, which words to use, what kind of design aesthetic to use, etc.