A target audience is often talked about but not many business owners are aware of its importance or how to get specific with one. Without a target audience, your business growth may be limited. To help you understand why, and what to do about it, here is some crucial information that you need to know.
What is a target audience?
A group of people that are very specifically identified and described, make up a target audience. This is a group of people that you will develop your products and services for. A target audience will be defined by their traits and demographics, such as gender, age, occupation, income, challenges, problems, goals, interests, hobbies, location, behaviors, and more.
For example, if you are a hospitality business, then you might be targeting affluent and young professional couples, aged between 35-45 who will be away on business trips and are interested in luxury dining.
Why is it important to have a target audience?
It is important to have a target audience because it will allow you to be specific about the problems you can solve and solutions that you can provide, to develop a really valuable product or service. Many business owners will jump in and try to serve everyone with their product or service, which does not work as it doesn’t resonate with anyone. But if you can target a group of very specific people, you will find they are much more likely to invest in your business and your conversion rates and profits will increase.
It will help you to narrow down your products and services. But it doesn’t just stop there, it will inform the direction of all your marketing efforts too. Marketing is all about being specific and creating content that resonates with your target audience. The best way to do this is to find marketing specialists that are best suited to your target market, for example, if you own a hospitality business, then you may work with a company such as Gourmet Marketing. This will ensure that you can best utilize your target audience information, and combine it with experts who know the hospitality industry inside and out. This will then provide you with direction for all your marketing and branding efforts and make things much easier. This effort will skyrocket your business growth.
How do you find your target audience?
Now you know what a target audience is, you can make a start on identifying yours. To help you get started, here are some top tips.
#1 Research your competitors
Starting with competitor research can give you a great head start on your target audience and who is interested in your products and services.
#2 Review your existing data
If you are already a business that is up and running, you should take a look at your data. With tools such as Google Analytics and social media analytics, you can start to narrow down who is interested in your products and services with real information, not assumptions.
#3 Survey potential customers
You should go out into the market and speak to real people. This will give you valuable insights into who your target audience is. You can do this with surveys and focus groups.
Understanding and identifying your target audience is vital. Follow these top tips to help you get started.
