Defining Your Target Audience, Step by Step

Trying to speak to everyone is a luxury few businesses can pay for. Each additional person you want to reach adds time and cost, and the message gets blurrier as the audience grows. Defining an audience does not mean turning anyone away. It means picking the group with the strongest reasons to buy and talking to them in terms that fit their situation, so your message and brand are built for somebody specific.

That can feel limiting, but in practice it works the other way. A focused message lets you talk with fewer people more deeply, and people who feel addressed tend to engage. Marketing to everybody usually reaches nobody in particular.

Begin with your own goals for each product or service. Consider how it meets a need or solves a problem, how it differs from what competitors provide and what makes the company distinct. Then ask who is likely to be interested and who gains the most. Your selling point is the thread that leads to the right audience.

Putting the questions in writing helps:

• What problem does this solve, and who feels it most sharply?
• What do those people do today in place of buying from you?
• Why would they pick you over the alternatives?
• Who else influences their decision?

Remember whom this exercise serves: the customer. Look for people who are actively searching for what you provide, and learn all you can about them.

An expensive study is not required to learn about your market. Five sources make a reasonable starting set.

Use data that already exists

Information collected by someone else is called secondary research, and it is usually an inexpensive way to begin. Government agencies at the federal, state and local level publish figures on households, population, local industries and economic conditions, which can reveal a lot about your buyers and your competitors before you spend anything.

Learn from your customers

Surveys, small focus groups, comments from your social followers and simple conversations show how people experience what you sell. Few research tools cost less than a conversation, and good dialogue is where good creative ideas often start. Building a habit of testing your messages takes time, but it keeps teaching you which direction to take with your products and your marketing.

Treat your website as a testing ground

If you are redoing a site or relaunching one, use analytics to see which pages visitors reach most often and which ones lead to inquiries or sales. That steady look at what works and what does not is research too, and it can raise the productivity of the whole site.

Learn from your industry

Trade associations, trade shows and association publications often provide market information, member lists and reference material. Do not hesitate to ask advice from others in your field; many are glad to help, and people who have been around longer know the pitfalls and where money is better spent. A conversation with them can also give you an informal read on a region or a customer base.

Know your community

Local chambers of commerce and business development offices can supply demographic reports, directories of local businesses and help with site selection, and some offer seminars on marketing topics. Most communities have one, including across the Atlanta area, and they repay the time it takes to get involved.

When none of these sources answers your question, primary research, meaning your own surveys or interviews with a focused group, can fill the gap. It costs more than the alternatives, but it can answer what nothing else will.

Research helps only once it is written down in a form people can use. Summarize your audience in a short profile: who they are, what they need, what holds them back from buying, which channels they use and what kind of message they respond to. If you serve more than one group, say which is primary and which is secondary, because they may need different messages and different channels.

Weigh what people say against what they do. A survey records what customers claim to prefer, while sales records, inquiries and website behavior show what they actually choose, and sometimes the two disagree. When they differ, trust the behavior and investigate the gap. Finally, check the profile against your own assumptions. Owners are rarely typical customers, and a profile built around yourself can quietly steer a campaign toward the wrong people.

Naming your audience is not enough. You also need to know which websites they visit, which social platforms they use, whether they read email or ignore it and whether they download apps to their phones. Add the offline picture as well: which radio stations they hear while driving, what they pass on a commute, which local outlets they trust and who influences their choices.

Put together, that information shows where your message, product or service should appear first. If your customers are mostly local, local advertising deserves a look, and for online placement, the article on finding your audience online adds specific ideas.

Defining an audience is not a one-time task. Follow your industry, watch your competitors and notice shifts in how people shop. Your customers will change over time, and so will the people you hope to attract, so track how they evolve.

Your own records are a good source. Sales, conversations and requests for information all leave a trail, and reviewing that trail with marketing analytics reveals patterns, trends and areas to improve. Once you are engaging the right people with a high-quality message, your company’s personality comes through and keeps them interested in your brand. The surrounding plan matters too, which is the subject of building a marketing strategy.

Selling face to face makes the audience easier to picture: who is ready to buy, who is browsing and who needs a different conversation? To meet Kirk Donovan and Mason Donovan, visit the about page. The advertising and marketing strategy hub lists more posts on planning for an audience.