Understanding Your Brand’s Target Market
Being a business owner is full of unknowns, but knowing your target market shouldn't be a guessing game. Developing a clear understanding of your target market may be the most important thing you can do for your business.
But, what is a target market, and why is it important?
Your target market is a specific group of consumers for which your product or service is specifically designed to solve their problems. By knowing exactly who they are, where you can find them, and what problems they're facing, you'll learn how to best position your brand.
Start your research process with the tools and information you have.
Your target market is ultimately a collection of individual traits associated with your customers—both past, present, and future. By using the information you have from customers and the insights available from the tools set up with your brand, your goal is to gain as much specific information as possible.
Collect these pieces of information:
Age Range
Gender Ratio
Top 3 Locations
Employment Types
Household Income
Buying Behavior
But how do I collect this information?
There are several tools to guide you in defining these characteristics. Here are just a few to get you started:
Google Analytics is a great tool to gain your audience's interests and demographic details. If you don't have this already set up for your site, you may not be able to gather relevant historical data. However, we strongly suggest getting this setup as soon as possible!
Social Media Analytics can show you insights into the demographics of your followers, including location, gender, age, and when they most engage with your content. Remember, each social media channel is different and has different audiences. You want to be mindful of that when creating content on each channel. Try to look for patterns in all the analytics to find a common thread.
Customer Surveys Engage with your audience by replying to comments and liking their content, and you may even try asking an engaging question that will get followers to respond so you can get to know them more and collect more qualitative data about who they are and why they buy from you.
By gathering information through each of these tools, you can build out personas that put a face to all of the data. Personas help visualize who your target market is and will help you craft specific messaging for them. You will be able to strategically reach those most interested in your product or service and not waste time or money talking to an idea of someone who doesn't exist.
The more you dive into who your target audience is, where they are located, and what interests them, the more you can strategically create content that positively engages them with your brand.
So now, what do I do with this?
The benefits of having a well-defined target market will take the guessing game out of both your in-person sales efforts and any digital marketing efforts that require entering this data. You'll know exactly who you're talking to and how to speak to them so you stand out from more generalist competitors.
We've been helping clients understand their target market, and buyer journeys through research-driven brand strategy. Review our case studies to learn more, and check out our blog on How To Stand Out In An Information Rich And Time Poor Society for more on marketing and growing your business.
Understanding your target market and audience is vital to the success of your business. Anyone can buy what you have to offer, but you can't market to everyone—you can't be all things to all people. Think about who your customers are who would benefit from your brand; focus on them and ignore the rest.
