Any marketing plan has a target audience and knowing how to select it is something really important. We should not stay on the surface when we focus on who our content and therefore our product will be directed to, because if we think that "it works for everyone" or "that anyone can buy it" we must know that we are in a position totally wrong..
So what is the target audience? Before going into the matter, you should know that the target audience is a group of people who have common characteristics and interests, and who will be more likely to be interested in consuming the services or products you offer.
Note
You must bear in mind that a company can have more than one target audience, that is, depending on the product or service that you want to sell, the target audience will be different.
You must know your clients and know who you are addressing, so that in this way you do it in the right way and your efforts have their rewards. Knowing how to detect your objective audience (also known as target) will allow you to determine what their characteristics and interests are, and thus focus your strategy correctly on the right people. It is useless to launch a sportswear campaign in the eyes of someone who has no interest in sports, don't you think?
This process will be crucial to be more or less successful and to determine if we have focused on the right target or, on the contrary, we must carry out a new analysis..
Why is it important to know our target audience?
The fact of knowing our clients will allow us to offer them more specifically what they are looking for, and therefore cover their needs. This will result in our strategy being a success with greater probabilities. In order to know our client, we must carry out a detailed and deep analysis of who we want to direct our content and our products to. The fact that we know our customers will also help us to:
- Have a higher number of sales since the chances that they buy are much higher if we choose people who we already know in advance have some type of interest related to our product or service
- Improve relationships with customers since they will feel more satisfied when they feel that our content or campaign is more personal and of interest to them.
- Reduce costs since, by focusing on a specific group of people, you will be able to save expenses and the benefits will be the same as if you attack an undefined general public.
- You will be able to better choose the channel and the type of language to use since if you are clear about which group of people you are going to address, you will be able to determine which media and language works best among this sector of the population.
- It improves engagement since by knowing the audience you are addressing, the interaction on both sides will be greater, since you are offering the customer what they need and this will generate a more solid bond.
In addition, the fact of knowing your client will allow you to develop your products with a better focus in the future and know what they are really looking for.
In addition, that our client is satisfied will be the basis of our success, so the more accurate we are about who we direct our products or services to, the more we will be making sure that the client is happy.
Note
Keep in mind that despite having an amazing marketing campaign, if it is not directed to the right group of people, you will not have the expected results, so knowing your audience is something really essential.
Relationship between content marketing and the target audience
We already know what content marketing is, but what relationship does it have with knowing how to define our target audience? The relationship between the two is that what content marketing seeks is to impact that target audience, that is, once the target to attack has been defined, the strategy will be to create the appropriate content for that type of group focused on what seek, their interests and needs.
Therefore, do you want to know how to identify your client? Do you want to know how to know your target audience and how to address it? Do you want to hit the target when you launch your marketing campaigns? In this case, you are in the right place because below we are going to analyze step by step how we can identify our target audience and segment our content. Let's get started!
1 How to know your target audience
Knowing your target audience should be one of your priorities, as we have already mentioned, in any marketing strategy that you want to apply to your brand or company, since this will allow you to focus it correctly. If you know who you are addressing, it will be much easier for you to be able to hit the right when launching your content or campaigns, since the probability of it being effective will be much greater. That is why we will see below how we can meet our target audience and what we must take into account.
Analyze your statistics
One of the things that will give you more information about your target audience is that you analyze your statistics from both your website and your social networks. From here you will be able to know really valuable data to be able to establish what your target audience is like. To get a complete analysis of this, you must analyze both demographic and psychographic data to know their interests, desires, behavior, etc.
For this we can look at the following metrics:
- Demographic data: This data includes the following: Age, gender, geographic location, educational level, occupation of your visitors, followers and buyers or Income
- Behavior: We can also look at the behavior of our customers, to find out what is most interesting about our brand or service.
- Traffic sources: Knowing where more visitors come to your page from will allow you to determine which of your channels (web, social networks...) is more effective and generates better results.
- Level of interaction: another of the metrics that can also be useful to us is knowing the interaction of our customers both with the page and with our publications on social networks.
Now that you have analyzed this, you must establish a series of common data that you have been able to establish through the information that you have collected by analyzing all this.
Example
Suppose we have a Beauty store. After analyzing the data carried out, we can establish the following:
- Demographic data: Women between 45 and 65 years old, living in large cities, with a medium educational level, working and with a good income.
- Behaviour: They mainly visit articles related to facial care.
- Traffic sources: They usually access more from Facebook posts
- Level of interaction: They make comments to solve different doubts about the products.
Do an analysis of your competition
For almost any project, conducting a competitor analysis is essential. This is important as this way he will know what you are up against and who you are "fighting" against. Observe at all times what they are doing, how they are behaving on social networks, and what kind of people interact with the publications they are making, whether they are articles or services related to your same sector. For this you must take into account the following:
- The first thing will be to detect the most powerful competitors, since they will probably be the ones that can give us the most valuable information about their customer data.
- Analyze what type of audience is the one that interacts with your posts, follows that page, and makes comments. In this way you will be able to see which profiles are the ones that access.
- Review the type of marketing campaigns they are doing: This can give you very valuable information since in this way you will be able to see what they are focusing on, what type of language they use, if they mention any type of public in space or the number of publications they make.
- Analyze strengths and weaknesses: Now that you know this data, it's time for you to analyze what strengths and weaknesses you find to be able to take advantage of this second and attack through that area, for example.
Example
Let's continue with the previous example. In this case we have decided to analyze the Loreal brand because we know that one of our competitors attacks our target audience with many of its products. To do this, we enter one of your publications, for example, to analyze the type of text, customer interaction and other aspects that give us data about the customers who have been interested, such as the likes received.
Based on these publications, you will be able to determine what marketing plan they are applying and what they are looking for in their clients. In this publication, for example, we see that they seek interaction and interest from users by asking different questions in their publication to later resolve these doubts in the publication of their post..
Carry out a market analysis
Carrying out a market analysis will help us to determine and establish a more limited target audience, which is really what interests us. In this way we will be able to determine how the current situation is and what customers demand in our sector. Carrying out a complete market analysis can take a lot of time and effort, so in this case we can focus on the basics and try to understand the basics that define our target audience. For it:
- We can carry out surveys: In this way we will better understand your needs, desires and expectations regarding the product or service offered by our company or brand. You can carry out online forms to do the surveys, which do not take too much time and are easy to answer so that participation is greater.
- Identify the needs of your target audience: When we already have a prior idea of our target audience, it is interesting that we investigate further in order to finally determine what their needs are and to be able to satisfy them through our content and products.
- Review market trends: Without a doubt, another interesting piece of information that you should take into account and carry out analysis is to review current market trends in order to know what the population is currently demanding. It is also interesting that you compare the previous trends with the current ones, so that in this way you can establish whether there has been any comparative change.
With this data you will be able to establish an analysis of which path to take and where the trends, interests and tastes of your public are heading.
Do trial and error campaigns
In any marketing campaign, you must do tests to find out the errors that arise and how to improve them. Once you have decided who your target audience is, what you should do is start creating campaigns to be able to launch your content and see how they are working. Based on this you can get new data and determine what we accept you should change.
This approach focuses on making several versions for the same campaign, so that in this way you can determine what is working best, based on the analysis of the results. For this we need to define the objective in detail and create an action plan in which we are clear about what we are looking for.
It is interesting that you first try social networks, since here you will be able to select with more clarity exactly the type of public to which you want to launch the campaign, to later analyze this data and see what is working best. Once you've tested this on social media, you can try launching it on more platforms and see and optimize the results. However, you must bear in mind that the social network must also be chosen based on your target, since an ad on TikTok will not be the same as an ad on Facebook in terms of the type of audience that uses each social network.
Example
Following the previous example, in our case we can create different campaigns that are similar in terms of demographic data, but we can vary the ages in each of them and the interests, for example. In this way we can narrow down the age range and what interests the target audience of our product has.
2. How to address your target audience
3 Target Audience Examples
To make it clearer for you how you should define your target audience, below we will see examples of different brands and different sectors, so that you can see different targets and based on what each of them has been established.
Example 1: Dove Target Audience
Women ages 20-50
Characteristics: Women who like to take care of themselves but aren't necessarily trend-followers. Interested in personal care and in following the latest trends.
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4 Difference between target or objective public and buyer persona
First of all, it is important that we clarify the difference between target or objective public and buyer persona
Target or target audience: This is a group of people who have common interests and certain similar characteristics. This group is quite broad and houses a number of different clients to whom we can offer our products or services.
Buyer persona: On the other hand, the buyer persona would be a much smaller group, which is within the computation of the target audience. This group would have much more defined characteristics since it would be a "semi-fictitious" representation of the ideal client of a brand or company.