How to Discover and Understand Your Target Audience

Here we are, firmly into 2020, and you might find you are still struggling to find your target audience. Now, this is something that is ever-evolving as you move through the stages of your business – however, it isn’t something you cannot just leave to chance. 

By finding your target audience – even if you have to pause and adjust from time to time – is one of the main keys to seeking success in your business. Much like “niche marketing” you need to sit down and identify who and how you want to speak to your audience and in what fashion.

What do you bring to the table? Why you went into business…

So to start, you need to sit down and figure out what your business brings to the table that others need to buy (part of why you went into the business). By making sure you have you are overall product/service platform 100% dialed in, it will help you create the calls to action to entice your ideal clients to your business.

By taking your product or service down to the basics, it helps you create a clear/uncluttered view of those you are trying to work with.

Now, start to create a persona!

Now I don’t mean an alter ego that you identify with – I actually mean, taking your product or service and breaking down to the age groups, locations, position in life types of data so that you can start isolating the ideal groups who might seek you out. You could maybe give each group a “Name” so that you become more familiar with who you want to work with.

Now that you have an idea who to target – how do you better understand your audience, to not only draw them in but keep them?

This list could go on forever, but there are a few gems that will help keep your outreach going, and also keep you top of mind with your current audience:

1. Keyword Search – by using a tool like Google Keyword Tool, you can keep certain words in your marketing phrasing so that you can keep them high in your ideal client’s line of sight. Keeping a spreadsheet of data on hand, that have the metrics to prove that certain keywords could draw in the types of clients you have been searching for – using them in your blogs, sales pages or copy for newsletters/email marketing. These (basically free) words could make or break where your content lands!
2. Sales and Support – Now this is just something that makes sense! If you grow so big that if you come across a problem or issue, you don’t have the team in place to support those customers, that word of mouth is worse than any other form of negative outreach. They won’t come back and they will make sure to tell EVERYONE that you don’t support or assist with your product! Whether it is a sales/shipping or service issue, you need to have an FAQ or means to address an issue, for your client, that way they feel appreciated and come back to you often for services or products!
3. Forums, Groups (Facebook or Website based)– have you ever considered having the means to learn from what your target audience wants? Needs? By having these groups, not only could you get ideas for future launches but also, if there are areas that could be improved – this is where the keyboard critique could be priceless! It is always good to have a forum to better understand how others appreciate, dislike or suggest your company. All are important to your future plans!
4. Metrics – looking at your social media metrics, sales metrics, forums (as listed above) – all these numbers do have a purpose – not just to tell you what sells, but also the types of messaging that is getting greater impact opportunities! Which posts had the most comments/engagement? Which images of new products appreciated the layouts etc and responded in likes (????)? These metrics all give you an idea if the expansion you decided to take was the right one, or if you should have focused somewhere else.

Now, these aren’t the end-all suggestions, there are many different blog opportunities to read, podcasts to listen to and experts you can learn from out there that are more involved in the idea of target audiences and how to use them. We just wanted to get a few thoughts in your mind when you look at how you want to not only launch your business but also to keep it growing in the future!

What other tips/tricks or suggestions do you have when it comes to seeking your ideal target audience and how you retain them? We would love to hear your thoughts!