Five ways of determining your target audience

As a business owner or the person responsible for Marketing, you would realize that when you have a solid understanding of your ideal buyer, you can make more informed decisions about media, messaging and timing. When creating your target group, you must be specific; it can be men, women, teenagers or children; they can have a shared interest in reading, football or a particular sport.

To determine your target audience, you should spend time analysing the data from consumer engagements, purchase trends as well as optimize new information revealed. Here are some tips to help you find your target audience:

• Analyse your current customer base and carry out customer interviews – Look at who already buys your product/service. How old are they? Where do they live?
  What are their interests? A good way to get this information is by engaging on social media or distributing customer surveys.

•  Analyse competitors – You can learn a lot by looking at competitors to see who are they are selling to and how they go about doing it. Are they using offline or online channels?

• Create personas – This is a good way to drill down into the specific segments that make up your target audience. When you develop a persona, you determine the general demographics, personalities and needs of your target consumer. Personas are created based on data, surveys, digital engagements and other information you can pull to give a complete view of the buyer e.g., their interest, what shows they look at, which platforms they are on among other things. You should develop at least three personas.

• Define who your audience isn’t – There will be consumers who will just not act on your messaging. Be specific about who is and who isn’t your audience. Are your demographics women, or is it women between 25 and 35? Equipped with this information, you will avoid devoting money to segments that don’t yield returns.

• Google analytics – Analytics offer extensive data about persons who visit your website, for example. You can use this to ascertain what channels they are coming from or what type of content they’re engaging and connecting with the most, thus allowing you to make more data driven decisions

Candice Sealey is the Founder & Principal Consultant at Ignite! a Full-service Marketing & PR Consultancy that helps businesses/brands to stand out and communicate the right message to the right people at the right time through Strategy, Marketing, Media services and Design solutions. She is also a freelance content writer, advertising copywriter, voice over talent, media personality. Follow us on FB & IG @igniteresults Phone:784-432-2223. Email: igniteresults@gmail.com