Identifying Your Target Audience

Iona from Grow My Business

Identifying your target market
Without knowledge of your business's target market, you will be losing a lot of clients and possible revenue and corporate connections. Target audience is a term that is thrown around a lot in marketing but is so so important especially for small businesses trying to get a foothold in an industry.

Lucky for everyone out there there are some very easy steps you can take without having to pay tons of money to a market researcher.

You can start off by asking yourself three fundamental questions;

Who are you selling to?

Why should they buy your product?

What do they stand to gain?

While these questions may seem mundane it is very easy to fly past them in the rush and excitement of starting a new project so remember to slow down and make sure you have a good grasp on the market you are targeting before spending money on Facebook ads.

Have a look at your existing clientele and try to spot some traits that are shared between them all like age, gender, product preferences etc. With this data, you can start to form a more detailed idea of your ideal target audience.

Market Research
Market research is a tool that is available to any business big and small. Look at what your competitors are doing good and what your competitors are doing bad. Avoid areas where a big company has already claimed and capitalise on its downfalls. This is the strength of a small business, versatility, fast action and community appeal.

Here is a good example layout that you can copy once you have some data to put in:

Target Audience for a skin care products business:
Age: 24 - 34

Gender
Male/Female

Geographic
Wellington Region

Demographic Traits
English Speaking, Familiarity with the Wellington Region, Middle Class,

Psychological
Impulse buyer reads a book by the cover, visual communicator, bores easily, Self-conscious, knowledgeable about the product they are buying.

Description
Our target audience is a window shopper, they are looking for something but nothing specific. For example, they have come into town to buy a new facial cleanser but haven't done any research. They are a visual communicator meaning they respond and are drawn to big flashy media and cool designs. They have little interest about the product apart from its cover appeal, they check the ingredients if it looks fancy and that's enough for them to make an informed purchase.

With this simple process, we have managed to obtain useful information we can apply to our products, services and marketing.

I hope this has helped you understand your customer base or given you a good refresh on the basics, either way, thank you for reading this short post on Target Audiences.

Cheers, The Grow my Business Team.