Market Smarter, Not Harder: Focusing on Your Target Audience

Market-Smarter-Not-Harder-Focusing-on-Your-Target-Audience

In order to effectively market your brand, you need to know the people on the other end: your target audience. Many companies make the mistake of trying to market to everyone but, in the wise words of Seth Godin, “Everyone is not your customer.” On the surface, reaching as many people as possible might seem like a good business plan, but it will only stretch your resources too thin, hurting your bottom line and costing your company customers. Get the most bang for your buck by aiming marketing strategies toward a well-defined target audience. Here’s how to get started.

Step 1: Define Your Target Audience

Ask yourself who the typical customer is for your brand and what they might be like. You should consider details such as age, gender, income, geographic location, hobbies, and more. For example, a company that sells boats and boating equipment would have a target customer that’s a higher-income male, aged 35 to 55, living in a coastal area. Do some market research and look at who your competitors are marketing to.

Step 2: Identify Your Target Audience’s Need

Think about what need your product or service fulfills or what sort of solution it offers your customer. Why do they need your brand? How will it improve their lives? Most importantly, think about what makes your product or service stand out from your competitors. What are you offering your target audience that other brands haven’t?

 

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Step 3: Focus Your Marketing Strategy

Once your target audience is defined, go through the current marketing strategies that your brand uses and make sure they are aimed at and appeal to the right demographic. Don’t focus on getting your brand in front of the largest audience, focus on getting in front of the right audience. Adjust the language used in your marketing campaigns to address the audience’s needs that you identified.

Step 4: Monitor & Optimize Your Strategy

Don’t just create some social media or email campaigns and then call it a day. You should be constantly monitoring your results and adjusting your efforts accordingly. Different audiences respond better to different strategies. From email to social media to text campaigns, try out different platforms that your target audience might use. Constantly update the language and graphics that you’re using to see what performs best.

Step 5: Gain Return & New Customers

Remember that your target audience is made up of both current and potential customers. Focusing your strategies to zone in on a specific group doesn’t eliminate the possibility for new customers, it just ensures that your brand is reaching the right people. By paying attention to your data, you’ll learn more about your audience that will allow you to both grow your following and remarket to your current customers.

Business and marketing success all comes down to knowing who your target audience is and what they like. Marketing to the wrong audience can be very costly and can even confuse the actual target customer. As long as you stay true to your core audience and anticipate their needs, new and old customers will always be able to find you.