This is part 1 of the “DIY Customer Focus Series”. You can read the follow up here…
Introduction
Marketing your product or service to a target audience is one of the most important parts of marketing. But how do you know who your target audience is? What characteristics do they have? And why does this matter? The answer is simple: If you don’t know who your customers are, then how can you market to them? A successful marketing campaign requires identifying what someone wants and using that information to connect with them on an emotional level. This type of connection will keep them coming back for more of whatever it is that has made their lives better!
So let’s get started by looking at some ways that you can identify their target audience so they can provide solutions for their needs.
The Importance of Knowing Your Audience
- Helps you tailor your marketing to their needs
- Knowing your target audience can help you avoid wasting money on marketing that doesn’t reach the right targets
- Reaching beyond marketing, it means you can develop better adjusted products & services to your clientele.
How do you understand your audience?
First know yourself; know your offering.
One of the first and most crucial steps is to clearly define what you are offering. This means not only describing the product or service in detail but also highlighting its key features and benefits. Understanding exactly what your product or service provides is essential, as it forms the basis for identifying your (potential) audience customer base. By articulating what makes your offering unique and valuable, you set the stage for all future marketing and sales strategies, ensuring that you’re targeting those who would most benefit from what you have to offer. This clarity helps in attracting and retaining customers who are genuinely interested in your product/service.
After that you need to figure out… Who Is Your Customer?
Identifying your target audience involves asking a myriad of questions that delve deep into who your ideal customer really is—a challenge that encompasses both broad and detailed considerations. Key questions to guide this exploration include understanding the aspirations of your customers, such as “Who does your customer want to be?” and “What do they want to be known for?” These inquiries help in pinpointing who your customers aspire to be and also how they wish to be perceived by others. This connection to your audience’s aspirations and perceptions is vital for engaging them on a deeper, more emotional level.
Further defining your target audience involves however small, an amount of market research.
Analyzing demographics—key characteristics such as age, gender, education level, and income help you see a more detailed picture of the lifestyle and needs of potential customers, allowing you to better tailor your marketing strategies to those most likely to benefit from your product or service. This approach ensures that every strategy you implement is informed by a thorough understanding of both who your customer is and who they aspire to become.
Diving Deeper: What Are the Needs of Your Target Audience?
Ask yourself, what are their needs? What do they want to achieve? The answers to these questions form the foundation of how you should approach your marketing strategy.
Your target audience will have a variety of different reasons for finding and consuming your content, but no matter what that reason may be, there is one thing in common: they will want something from it. In other words, there’s a need! Understanding this idea is crucial when creating any kind of marketing campaign or digital asset—it can help you determine where the value lies within each piece of content you create, no matter how small or large it might be.
What Are Their Problems That Need Solving?
- Be specific about their problem.
- Using the specifics you defined earlier, relate clearly and simply how your offering presents a solution to that client problem.
- Be specific about your audience and their goals, values, and problems.
In order to be effective at marketing to a target market, you have to know what they want and what they need—and how you can deliver those things in a way that satisfies them. This is where understanding the motivations behind your audience’s actions comes into play: why they’re buying products or services, making purchases online or in stores, using social media platforms like Facebook or Instagram (or both).
How Do You Build a Relationship with Your Audience?
- Be a good listener.
- Be a good communicator.
- Be a good storyteller.
- Be a good friend, teacher, mentor and leader who is there for them when they need it most; this will earn their trust and loyalty over time (and make them more likely to come back).
How Do You Help People Discover Your Brand?
Once you’ve identified your target audience and created a plan for how to reach them, the next step is to create a strategy for reaching them. Here are some ways to help potential customers discover your brand:
- Use social media. Social media is the fastest-growing form of online marketing. It allows you to connect with people in real time, build relationships, and even find new leads!
- Get your website on the first page of search results. This means using SEO techniques when writing content for your site so that it appears in search engine results when someone searches for terms related to what you do or sell. If they don’t see any links from other websites (links are often called hyperlinks), they might not visit yours at all! So make sure there are plenty of good ones pointing at yours!
- Send messages via email marketing campaigns (or email newsletters). Newsletters aren’t just one big spammy blast; they’re actually personalized messages sent directly into someone’s inbox based on who they are—and what they’ve done before visiting your site as well as where they live within The United States / Canada / Mexico etcetera…
How Do You Connect with Their Values and Goals?
One of the best ways to connect with your target audience is by focusing on what they value or want. If you can give them something that will help them pursue their goals, you’re more likely to build trust and loyalty in a relationship with them.
Consider this example: You’re trying to get into the marketing world and need help building your professional network. One of your friends has been working as an assistant for years and is looking for a way out of her job so she can go back to school next year; another friend works at an advertising agency and wants more responsibility but isn’t sure how he’ll get it without taking on extra hours or learning new skills. Both would love if you could introduce them each other—that way when one gets promoted (or moves on), they both benefit!
How Do You Turn One-Time Customers into Loyal Followers?
So, how do you turn one-time customers into loyal followers?
- Use Social Media
Social media is a great way to connect with your target audience. You can share content that they’ll find interesting and relevant, as well as communicate directly with them in a way that feels more personal than other forms of marketing such as emailing or direct mailings.
- Use Email Marketing
Email marketing is especially effective if you have an existing customer database that allows you to send automated messages to specific users at different times throughout the year (for example, birthday cards for customers’ birthdays). This shows these people that their needs are important enough for you to remember them every month or so when they may need some reassurance from your brand—and it also gives them something nice! People love getting birthday cards! That’s why Facebook keeps asking me about my birthday every single time I log in now; because if we have our birthday set up on Facebook’s website, then Facebook knows when it’s our birthday and can send us notifications when this happens! So yeah…don’t make people feel like Facebook does when it comes down to sending out a “Happy Birthday!” message through email; instead make them feel special by sending an actual card via snail mail (or even better: hand deliver).
How to Identify Specific Groups of Customers within Your Target Audience.
Once you have identified your target market, the next step is to segment that audience into specific groups of customers who share similar needs and wants. This will allow you to focus on different parts of your marketing message.
Take our example from above: The target audience for a business who sells women’s shoes online is women between the ages of 25 and 50 who are looking for high quality shoes at an affordable price. To identify specific groups within this audience, we would look at geographical location, age groups, etc. This could help us create separate websites or Facebook pages based on these different criteria (e.g., one website just for New Yorkers). It could also help us tailor our content so that it better resonates with each group individually (e.g., posting more photos on Instagram versus Twitter).
Having this information about your customers can help your marketing be more effective
Knowing your target audience can help you connect with them in a more meaningful way. It will also help you create marketing that resonates with them, and make decisions that are relevant to their needs. If they’re not interested in what you have to say, why would they listen?
Let’s take a look at an example of how knowing your target audience can impact your business:
Conclusion
You may have heard the phrase, “know your customer,” but for many people it can seem like a daunting task. However, if you take the time to understand who your customers are and what they need from you then you will be well on your way toward building a successful business. By understanding their demographics and values, you can create targeted marketing campaigns that speak directly to them—and that’s exactly what we hope this article has done!