How to Define Your Target Audience

It’s one that we love around the Ouu I Love office because it’s all about the importance of knowing your target audience!

Your target audience is one of the most important things to identify when you start a business. It can act as a guiding light when it comes to your branding, messaging, advertising, and even product development.

Defining your target audience is a struggle that every business owner and marketer can relate to. But it is essential when it comes to standing out in a sea of other brands vying for the same customers as you.

If you are curious about the importance of target audiences and how to identify yours, we’ve broken it all down in this week’s post.

What is a Target Audience?

A target audience is the group that you are trying to reach with your business's marketing efforts. It is a specific group of people that you believe would benefit most from seeing your advertisements. In other words, they will be most interested by seeing your ads pop up and want to buy your products.

Let’s use an example to illustrate what we mean. Let’s say that you’re a skincare brand focused on sustainability, and you’d like to purchase an advertising spot in your local magazine. After all, it’s super popular in your city, and thousands of readers pick it up each month. Sounds like the perfect medium to market your brand, right? Maybe not.

While this may seem like a good idea, you may be inadvertently marketing to the wrong group. Even if your city’s magazine is super popular, it’s readership may be full of people who aren’t into skincare, let alone sustainable skincare. To go back to the quote from the beginning, you are trying to sell to everyone, which means that you are effectively selling to no one.

This is why target markets are so important. By understanding who you are marketing to, you can boost the effectiveness of your marketing. Target markets also help you create more personalized messaging and reach the people who will benefit the most from your product. It’s a win-win all around!

What Do You Need to Determine Your Target Audience?

We know why a target audience is important, but how do you figure out who your target audience is?

We’ve laid out three ways that you can narrow your target audience focus and figure out who you really need to be marketing to. Keep reading to learn more!

Look to Your Competitors

Not sure who you should be marketing to? Check to see what your competitors are doing.

Observing your competition is a great way to figure out if you’re targeting the right audience. You’ll be able to learn a lot about how to speak to your audience by researching what others are doing in your space.

However, you will not be successful if you copy exactly what your competitors are doing. If you copy your competitors, you will be stepping into the exact same space as them. To be successful, you will need to find something that sets you apart from the crowd.

Here’s what you should consider when researching your competition’s audience:

• Age

• Gender

• Location

• Beliefs

• Budget

• Lifestyle

Is your competition neglecting a region or a certain group? This can point you in the right direction as you create a differentiator and establish your target audience.

Create a Customer Persona

If thinking about demographics is making your brain hurt, it may be helpful to create a customer persona.

A customer persona is a fictional description of someone who you believe is your ideal customer. It is the embodiment of your target audience and can help you visualize the kind of person who is buying your products.

So, how do you create a customer persona? Imagine if you picked the one person on Earth who perfectly embodies your ideal customer. How would you describe them? The more detail you can come up with, the easier you will find it to speak to them directly with your marketing deliverables.

We’re all about asking questions to get the bottom of things. Here are some questions that we ask to determine the ideal customer for a brand:

○  How old are they?

○  What’s their gender?

○  What are their likes? Dislikes?

○  Where do they shop?

○  Where are they located?

○  What are their hobbies?

○  What's their interests?

○  What’s their occupation?

○  What’s their income?

○  Are they bigger spenders or conscious budgeters?

Creating a customer persona can give you valuable information about your larger target audience. As you create new campaigns or make decisions about your business, think about your customer persona and how they would react to this change.

Looking At Your Customer Persona As a Whole

Once you create your customer persona and identify what you believe is your target audience, you need to look at your persona as a whole to make sure that you’re marketing to the right group.

 It’s a good idea to think outside of the box when it comes to your potential customers, but you also need to think logically about who you are marketing your products to. The questions you ask to determine your target market should tell a story of who your persona may be, but that story also needs to be realistic.

Considering things like price, age, and location can help you determine if your target audience is accurate. It will also identify any gaps in your product features or availability.

Knowing your target audience and how to define it is the key to success.

Click the image above to download the empathy map that we use to help our clients define their target audience!

Do you have any questions about target audiences and how to identify yours? Let us know!

Comment below what else you would like to know about target audiences or send us a DM on Instagram at @OuuILove.