subject: Who Is Your Target Audience? [print this page] Who Is Your Target Audience? Who Is Your Target Audience?
Defining your target audience is one of the cornerstones of marketing. If you don't know who your target audience is, you will have difficulty being successful with your campaigns. In this article, I will show you exactly how you can figure out who your target audience is and how you can reach them.
First, you have to know to which demographic your product or service caters. What is the age of your customers? What's their marital status? Does it appeal more to men or to women? These are all very important factors that you should know to get a sense of who your target audience is. It's also very important that you know your audience's income, level of education and location.
To define your target audience, you also have to know what would motivate them to buy your product. Does your product provides a solution to a problem or is it merely for entertainment? You have to know what your customers will be getting out of your product if you really want to understand them and develop your campaigns in accordance with these needs.
Where and how does your audience shop? Do they do a lot of online shopping or do they mainly shop offline? Do they buy for emotional reasons or are they more pragmatic? All these facts will affect the way you market to them. Some marketing methods work better with young online shoppers who buy out of compulsion, while others will work with older customers who shop through more traditional channels.
To be able to successfully target your audience, you'll have to know where they meet. Depending on their age and status, they will congregate in different areas. If your audience is younger, you have to know which websites they frequent, which type of establishments they go to and to which type of entertainment events they attend. This information will be very valuable once its time to devise your marketing campaigns.
One of the greatest and easiest ways to target your audience is through a marketing list. With the use of a list, you can gather some crucial information and maintain a steady relationship with your customer base. You'll be able to monitor their habits and do some post-purchase evaluation. You'll also be able to make modifications to your marketing campaigns to get better results.
If you're not using a list in your marketing efforts, you're definitely missing out. Companies pay thousands of dollars to build a customer database, and the use of a list can give you basically the same results for only a fraction of the price. So if you're not using a list already, you should give it a try to see what it can do for your business.
