There are endless benefits to truly understanding your target audience. Taking the time to research this element of your business can boost sales conversions and help your business work more efficiently. Without a defined audience, you are essentially guessing who wants your product or service. This can lead to money being wasted on marketing through the wrong channels. It can also lead to burn out as your team works harder to make the business a success.
What is a target audience?
Your target audience is, as the name suggests, the group of people you want to sell to. Some businesses take the top level of who defines their audience and run with that. For example, you might define your audience as small to medium enterprises if you are B2B or young families if you are B2C. This top level description defines your market and not your audience.
To know your audience is to know who they are, the demographics that they share, the lifestyles that they lead. With a little research, it is possible to discover the age range, locations, shopping habits, family size, interests, income, and even pets. Most importantly, you will know what problem in their life your product or service solves.
This information will change the way you market. No longer will you target a broad sphere of young families. Instead, you will know that you have an increased chance of sales if you target parents aged 30 to 45, living in the suburbs with two to three children, a household income of $70,000, one car and who holiday once a year in Europe.
How Do B2B and B2C Audiences Differ?
Knowing your audience for B2C is as equally important. To work efficiently, you will want to put all your resources into targeting the right businesses. By researching your audiences, it is possible to understand them better. In a B2C situation, this includes knowing who the decision makers are and what the business’ buying process is.
“Network and connect with senior and junior people in your target businesses to get the inside scoop on what makes them tick”, says Don Griffiths from an audience analyst at Britstudent and Write My X, “Before good sales, comes good audience research. No better place to get that than from the business themselves”, adds Don.
By understanding details like the revenue of a business, the demographics of the decision makers and the level of success they are having in the market, you will be able to target them more effectively.
How To Find Out About Your Audience
The truth of the matter is that it has never been easier to analyze audience data, Tina Hull a tech blogger at 1Day2Write and NextCoursework, says, “There are so many tools readily available now to help a business really get to know who their audience is. Social media, google web tools, mailing tools – they all track and store data about the people who use them”.
Google Analytics can tell you the age ranges that most frequent your website, their interests and what devices they use to access your site. It will also tell you when they frequent your site and what pages they are interested in. This can help you to show the right people the right information at the right time.
Social media sites like LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram all offer some built-in insights. LinkedIn will tell you the job function, company size, industry and seniority of your audience. Facebook will tell you gender and location. For more detailed demographics for social media sites, consider investing in insight tools.
When you have your audience research complete, the next step is aligning your business with the audience’s needs. You know your product and service better than anybody. To convince your target audience that it is the winning solution for their needs you need to know exactly what problem you are solving for them. It is probable that you are competing against multiple offerings. Know what sets you apart from your competitors in your customers’ eyes. This could be your price, quality, customer service, delivery options, guarantees. Whatever it is that sets you apart have evidence that backs up your claim. If there is one thing that most audiences have in common at this age it is their willingness to research and be informed before they buy.
