Products and services are designed with consumers in mind. Instead of trying to market to every type of person, businesses need to use their marketing budget effectively to find their target audience. A target audience is a group of people who are the most likely to respond positively to your products, services, and marketing efforts.
There are strategies to target your audiences and sell to them more efficiently. However, you can’t sell to your target audience if you don’t know who they are. Finding your business’s target audience is essential to pinpoint the most likely consumer type to buy your product.
For B2B companies like IBM or Salesforce, there is a reason their ads and commercials feature business professionals who look like they would appeal to companies who would be interested in their products. Marketing can be very powerful when done correctly.
Before you can start creating powerful marketing campaigns and advertising to potential customers, you have to know who your potential customers are. Larger companies might have an easier time at this because they’ve most likely had more time to grow and build up an extensive profile of who they are selling to.
No matter the size of your business, finding your target market is a continual process that will need to be updated as your company adds a new product or service and the customer’s circumstances change. Finding your target market is key to improving marketing strategies, growing your business, and continuing to generate leads.
To determine who your target audience is, it takes market research. Understanding these three factors and outlining an ideal customer avatar will help you find your target market. Your target audience can be broken down into three separate specifications: Demographic, Geographic, and Psychographic.
Demographics are the characteristics of a large population such as age, race, and sex. More specific demographic information includes employment, education, income, and marriage rates.
It’s essential to identify your target audience’s demographics because it will reveal the similarities and characteristics of target audiences to identify the kinds of customers who are interested in your business.
Geographics are the characteristics of customers within a particular region. Education, employment, income, religious beliefs, political views, and weather conditions are all factors that will vary depending on which area of the world you are concentrating on marketing to. These characteristics will affect consumers’ spending habits and how they interact with your business.
Within these geographic areas, most of the people who live there will experience similar levels of characteristics, but there will always be outliers. It’s important to know what life looks like for people in different regions.
Psychographics are the attitudes, behaviors, interests, beliefs, and preferences within a concentration of people. Of course, no two people will behave the same even if they are the same age or live next door to each other. However, there are always shared psychographics within a group of people in a market.
At the end of the day, customers are people just like you. Does your team enjoy working with your customers? This question is part of the framework to analyze personal fulfillment. Does your team have similar lifestyles and beliefs as the customers you are marketing to? Being able to empathize and identify with your target audience and understand their frustrations and aspirations will help you tap into who your customers are and market to them more effectively.
Even if your marketing team does its research and sells your products, without a lot of value, products will be returned and sales will slow down. It's vital to assess how much value you bring to your target audience within that specific market. Is your product valuable to the type of people you are marketing to? Does your product enrich your customers’ lives?
There will be multiple available markets you can sell to. People within these markets will have varying budgets and incomes. How profitable are the customers you are selling to? People from different walks of life and circumstances will be more or less advantageous to your business. Determining this is essential to know where the greater potential for revenue lies.
Recency refers to how recently a customer bought one of your products. A recent customer typically yields higher odds of returning to your business than one who has not done any purchasing with you. Tracking the number of customers who recently purchased from your business is essential to determine the likelihood of them continuing to do business with you.
Frequency refers to the number of times a customer does business with you. It’s a safe bet that returning customers are more satisfied with your products than ones who only buy from your business a single time. The more often a customer buys from your business, the more likely they will continue buying from you.
Monetary refers to how much a customer spent in a single transaction. Frequent customers who rack up a large bill are the type of customers that you want to target as they have more monetary potential.
If possible, take a look at the customers you already have. Typically, the customers who make up the top 20% of your revenue will be the ones you want to focus on. Using the demographic, geographic, and psychographic metrics, identify the commonalities between these top spenders.
Additionally, looking at the RFM framework is also vital because it reveals customers’ spending habits. If your business is in the early stages, go out and gather data from potential customers. Conducting interviews and focus groups, or creating surveys through a social network like Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, or Linked-in is a great way to not only generate buzz about your business but gather research.
If you don’t feel comfortable creating content or posting on social media, start with some basic keyword research. Use keyword research tools like SEMrush, AHrefs, and Google Analytics to discover what people are searching for and what needs they are looking to fill. One way or another, you need data and research to know what potential customers want to be filled.
Trying to cram your products into a saturated marketplace is unproductive and won’t yield results that will help your business grow. More prominent companies can satisfy customers cheaply and already have a large base of happy customers. To compete with these giants, find what makes your products special and determine why your audience would choose you over a competitor.
No matter the size, every organization looks at new marketing strategies for continually reaching their target audience and growing their business. The marketing life cycle begins even prior to the product launch. Understanding customer behavior and knowing how the product or service will meet customer needs is where your target audience will develop and evolve.