How do I identify my Target Audience?

You ever have that conversation with anyone and they ask you “who is your product/service for”, and you gleefully remark “Well, it’s for everyone”. While building something applicable for everyone might be a great goal to achieve for a product, the “everyone” concept doesn’t quite exist in marketing. Not only is it expensive and ineffective, it sends out a vague message that you are trying to be friends with everyone in the playground, when in reality there are only a few who are going to understand your game and enjoy it! 

Deciding who your audience is can be a game changer for small businesses, it can try and help you understand their particular challenges and ensure that you are communicating how your product/service can solve their challenge. 

Alright, maybe you tell me you are just making some printed T-shirts out of a warehouse and are not actually aiming to solve any major challenge for humanity. Nonetheless, defining your audience may better help you understand that your neighborhood uncle’s walking group may want “finding style at the best price”, while your Gen Z audience is looking for a “bespoke cultural experience made locally”. 

With the right audiences under your belt, you could definitely: 

1. GROW and increase sales of your product/service
2. Save money on your marketing with more targeted ads
3. Design better products/services curated to your audience needs
4. Customize your marketing approach to each audience in a language they understand

So how do you actually go about identifying who your audience really is? 

If you are a new brand, looking to enter the market, well first of all – good job! You are doing your due diligence at the right time. Time to dive deep into your market research to figure out what is really going on. You can start by trying to answer the following questions:

1. What is my core product/service?
2. What is the Unique Selling Point (USP) of my product that helps me stand out?
3. Where am I going to play ? (Locally/Internationally? Major cities, small towns?)
4. Where am I going to sit on the price scale? (Low and affordable, High and premium)?

Once you have a base idea on what your core business is, you can now narrow down who your audience is going to be. 

The first step would be to look for cues in your environment. These could be through checking out who other players in your market are targeting or even figuring out what is the footfall like near your store. Talk to people, figure out if they have any interest in your potential product as well as how much they would be willing to pay. 

From a digital standpoint, you could check out tools like Google Trends and Hashtag trend tool to understand what users are looking for online. 

The internet has largely leveled the playing field, SO USE IT! You could get trend reports, market analysis, product prices and much more, which would put you in a far better position to identify your audience. 

If you are an existing brand, your trump card sits in your sales data. This is realtime, actual data of how your brand has positioned itself in the market. You might say that I don’t have an advanced tool to collect any customer data, and that is fine. Merging together your payment history and receipts might be all the start you need. 

The biggest challenge for small businesses is not being able to visualize who their audience is. So it is time for you to get a bit organized in order to see the bigger picture. Start by ensuring you are recording every single purchase (online or offline) in a consistent manner

1. Use an Excel spreadsheet or Google Sheet (easier to collaborate on) to record all the purchase details you can about your customer (name, business, contact information, etc.) Too busy to make your own? Download this base template and get a jumpstart! 
2. If you collect all your information through receipts or maintain offline records, ensure you move it to an online backup (easier to review, analyze & share and definitely more secure)
3. You could create a quick survey form via Google Forms to collect more information about your customers.

Apart from the data you collect through sales, you could also find many clues about your audience via your marketing channels: 

1. Leverage the analytics tools on Social Media platforms to see who is engaging with your content
2. With the help of an analytics tool (Google Analytics most commonly used), you could understand more about your audience on your website

Okay so now you have all this data and information collected – time to make sense of it! 

A useful tool to help you do this could be the S-T-P model. 

Segmentation: Audience segmentation means dividing your market into smaller groups based on shared traits, like age, gender, location, or buying habits (e.g., shopping online vs. in-store). These groups should have clear differences to target them effectively.

Targeting: This is where you choose which audience groups to focus on. Pick segments that are easy to reach or likely to bring in the most income. Aim for 2-3 target groups to keep your marketing focused and effective.

Positioning: Here is where that “personalization” buzz word you have been seeing comes in. The idea is to try and fit your product specific to the target segment – by addressing their challenges and communicating value in a language they understand. 

Below is an example of target audience segmentation in action: 

And that’s it! You now have a clear, data-backed understanding of your target audience. With this insight, your product and marketing strategies are bound to become airtight! 

Need a little extra help figuring out your audience? Drop us a message here, and we’ll reach out to you! 😊

Till then, happy discovering!