How to Define Your Target Audience
Obtain Authenticity in marketing by diving deep into understanding and targeting audiences
With over 5 billion global Internet users and 4.65 active social media users, it’s challenging to sort through the masses to find exactly who you need to speak to. At the end of the day, the people and businesses needing your solutions represent a minuscule portion of that global digital population.
When it comes to marketing your business, you don’t have time or resources to waste. Most businesses lack the ability to go after the right people in an efficient and effective manner because they have yet to define a target audience.
Target Audience Definition
A target audience is a specific group of people or businesses who will most likely purchase your product or services—in other words, the people who need to see your marketing campaigns. Target audiences tend to share similar traits. Specifically for manufacturers, this group of people may share job seniority, company size, interests, job title, global regions, industry, or any combination of several other factors.
Depending on what solutions you sell—product or service—your target audience may be broad or narrow. As an example, an automotive manufacturer’s audience is likely broad since several people purchase vehicles. But, if you’re a plastics injection molder specializing in medical devices for pediatric patients, your audience is finite—only so many businesses need your expertise as their supplier.
What are the Types of Target Audiences?
A targeted audience can be segmented into smaller groups to further support your marketing efficiencies. These segments or categories might include some of the listings mentioned earlier, but could also include purchase intent, purchasing power, gender, or budget.
What is the Difference Between Target Audience and Target Market?
Sometimes the terms target audience and target market are used interchangeably—but there are key differences that set them apart. Understanding these differences will make an impact on how you address them through marketing activities.
One of the best ways to distinguish between target audience vs target market is the size of each. A target market is the entire group of people or businesses you want purchasing your product—a large, albeit wishful, group of people. On the other hand, a target audience is a specific collection of people or businesses that you think might actually buy your products or services—a smaller, more practical group of people.
Another differentiator between the two groups, as we hinted to already, is the likelihood of a sale happening. Within the target audience, there is a strong likelihood that, with the right messaging, people will make a purchase from you. With the target market, there is no guarantee or strong likelihood that a purchase will happen because not everyone needs your solution. Putting all your efforts into trying to sell to the large target market is wishful thinking and wasteful. The smaller and more specific you can be in defining your target audience, the better your odds of securing a sale, the more effective you can be with your budget and the better your ROI (return on investment) should be.
Why is Targeting Your Audience Important?
To have success in your marketing activities, it’s vitally important that you consider what is the target audience and how to find your target market. Afterall, the buying process really is in the hands of your customers. And as a marketing professional, you must create targeted, personalized experiences if you expect prospects to engage with your material when they have so many other brands grabbing for their attention. With a thorough, genuine understanding of your ideal buyer, you can make better informed decisions about channels, media, timing, messaging and more. This knowledge will drive every marketing plan and strategy you build.
Benefits of Target Audience Marketing
Targeting Audiences Uses Time and Money Where It Counts
One of the primary benefits of marketing to a targeted audience is optimizing resources allocated to your activities. Approximately $37 billion is wasted every year on ad spending that doesn’t engage the target audience. Instead of spending money and time trying to reach every potential customer, defining a target audience allows for more intentional outreach efforts. Knowing what your ideal buyer reads, watches, follows on social media and what tradeshows they attend allows you strategically focus your team’s time and marketing activities in ways that grab the buyer’s attention. And of course, selecting the right marketing activity and channel is critical to achieving marketing ROI.
Target Audiences Builds Relationships and Better Communications
Protecting and increasing your ROI isn’t the only benefit of target audience marketing. Understanding your ideal buyer also allows you the opportunity to build relationships with and better communicate within your industry. Your team will be able to develop messaging and presentations that speak to specific personas and develop solutions that coincide with interests, values and problems of potential customers. This is especially important in an age when buyers expect customized messaging and solutions. In fact, 80% of consumers say they prefer businesses that offer personalized interactions—this behavior also carries into professional environments.
How Do I Identify My Target Audience and Reach Audience Authenticity?
The best way to find your target audience is by thinking about the specific needs your product or service offering fulfills. Ask yourself, what is the pain point you solve? For example—still using our automotive manufacturer example—if you’ve learned that it is hard to find vehicles with ample interior space and you have the solution, your next step would be to find out who is in search of a vehicle with a lot of space. Perhaps your target audience is parents, specifically segmented to parents that struggle finding vehicles with enough space to accommodate multiple car seats, gear for their kids and perhaps pets.
The more you can break up your target audience into sub-segments as mentioned above, and highlight pain points, the more effectively you can market to them. Using our parent example, this example, you might consider advertising through channels with a high concentration of young moms (since they tend to select the vehicle options before presenting them to their partner for an agreed-upon purchase decision), with imagery and messaging that speaks to the emotions of their situation. But the more specific your audience, the more research you will need to do to reach ideal authenticity in marketing messaging.
What is Authenticity in Marketing?
In years past, a company’s or sales representative’s aim was to raise the expectations of prospects and drive them to buy a solution. But today, audiences are completely different. They typically hate being sold to. They see ads and “sales talk” as a nuisance, not a chance to learn about new solutions. Audiences are worn out from advertising. They crave authenticity.
So, a company that generates it by building trust, honesty and empathy will stand to benefit and rise above competitors. Authenticity in marketing is about relationship building—showing your target audience you know them and care about solving their problems.
5 Steps to Develop Authenticity in Marketing
Knowing that authenticity is where businesses need to take their marketing, the next logical question would be, “how do I develop authenticity in marketing and communication activities?” While the answer isn’t simple, there are some basic methods for getting there:
Focus on developing a relationship – Don’t force or push a sale. People today are more likely to connect with a person over a solution. Make sure you and your team are authentic in everything you do. Consider incorporating networking into your marketing strategy and brush up on your communication skills.
Become more of a consultant – Instead of trying to sell to your target audience, talk to them, learn their goals, get them talking about their problems and pain points, and then find where you can add value to their business.
Use storytelling in conversation – Stories have the power to ignite emotions and encourage action. They also have the power to build a deeper connection, especially when you have the right motives in mind—to be a partner and consult buyers.
Focus on sharing thought leadership and knowledge – By having educational messaging, insights and tone of voice, you build trust and credibility.
Incorporate customer reviews – This is one of the best ways to generate authenticity with your target audience. Map out a strategy to incorporate reviews, based on the voice of your customer, throughout your marketing plan.
How to Study Your Target Audience
While it’s understandable to think achieving authenticity is easier for businesses with smaller target audiences because they are setup for building relationships, that’s not true. Achieving authenticity is achievable for any business—regardless of the size of the target audience. All you have to do is study your target audience and conduct research.
How to do Target Audience Research
Conducting research is a powerful way to understand your audience so that you can more accurately solve their problems. The more you know, the better. This is how top marketers became successful, they were willing to do, and act upon, the serious research.
The results of good research will tell you:
If you are reaching the right audience
Who your audience is and where to find them through geographic, demographic, psychographic and behavioral information
How to segment your audience
How to communicate and build relationships with your audience
So how do you find someone to conduct your research? Our crew is here and happy to help you find a market research company that will support you in the process of conducting quantitative and qualitative studies.
These two types of research, quantitative and qualitative, work together but have different methodologies. Simply put, quantitative research is conducted among masses and provides you with statistical data that applies to a large group of people. On the other hand, qualitative research dives deeper to answer the “why” behind the statistics—it provides high-quality insights. A couple of examples of these are surveys (quantitative) and focus groups (qualitative). For example, an automotive manufacturer may conduct surveys to get statistical insight behind their products, competing products and buyer behaviors. Then, they will follow that up with a focus group event—like a ride and drive—where they will have the opportunity to ask the audience more in-depth questions about their products, competing products and buyer behaviors. The results provide valuable insights that can be used to develop a marketing strategy and activities.
Market Research Tools
When partnering with a research firm isn’t possible, it’s OK, there are tools available that can help fill the gap. Here are 7 ways to conduct your own market research:
Use tools such as Google Analytics and MailChimp – Within your analytics account, your website traffic is broken down into different segments such as demographics, interests, geography, etc.
Go direct to your audience – There is no better way to build relationships and understand your audience than by asking the questions yourself. While the information you discover may not scale to your entire audience, it will certainly show them you care and give you insightful information to work with. And, the more often you can engage your existing customers, the more likely you are to retain customers for a longer period of time.
Use analytics and insights from your social channels – Similar to Google Analytics, social media channels allow you to discover demographics and learn what topics interest your followers. You can also collect insights and feedback from follower engagement (e.g., reviews, comments).
Follow your audience – This applies not only to physical locations but also online, and it applies to both professional and personal settings—in today’s age, the two tend to overlap.
Spy on your competition – Using tools such as Followerwonk and SEMrush allow you to compare your digital activities, followers and other metrics against your competition, while also providing insightful details.
Consider the diversity of your team – Does your team represent your audience? Consider style, race, politics, culture, values, hobbies/interests, etc. If your team truly represents your audience, they will be able to provide insights that may have otherwise been overlooked during your planning process.
Put yourself in your audience’s shoes – Think about their personas. What is the primary gender of your target audience and how does this factor into their buying process? Then think about other factors, including age and socioeconomic status? What does a day in their life look like?
In the end, don’t be afraid to challenge your assumptions and learn from what others have found. Sometimes industry associations have done the hard work for you and allow members to access the data and insights. Don’t hesitate to reach out to them to see if they have resources or offer additional support in this area.
4 Steps on How to Reach and Retain Your Target Audience
Now that you understand your audience, how do you attract them to your business? And how do you retain customers? Here are 4 tips to attract your target audience:
Create a solid marketing plan – The more specific and strategic you are in building a plan, the better your conversions will be.
Develop benchmark goals – This will give you clear-cut expectations to hold yourself and team accountable.
Have clear messaging – This is critical to attracting potential buyers and a major mistake a lot of companies make. You did all the hard work to know your target audience, now make sure you’re speaking to them in ways they understand, excite and entice them to engage with you.
Bring in an outsider partner – Business owners are usually so invested in and knowledgeable about their solutions that they fail to look beyond their assumptions to market in ways that resonate with their intended audiences. Many communicate what they want to say, not necessarily what their customer wants to hear. A partner can offer a clearer sense of how a prospective buyer might respond to your marketing, and they can also help you build your plan.
And remember, your work isn’t done once you’ve closed the sale. Retain customers by continuing to focus on the relationship and keeping your products/services relevant. Your customers will always change. By continually working to understand your audience, you will build trust and empathy in ways that keep your solutions relevant during times of change. But remember, this often means you will need to make changes to keep your customers around.
Understanding a target audience isn’t something that happens overnight. It takes time, and occasionally practice, to get it right. As a quick reference, we’ve provided an easy-to-use worksheet for identifying target audiences.
Frequently Asked Questions about Target Audience
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A target audience is a specific group of people or businesses who will most likely purchase your product or services—in other words, the people who need to see your marketing campaigns. Target audiences tend to share similar traits. Specifically for manufacturers, this group of people may share job seniority, company size, interests, job title, global regions, industry, or any combination of several other factors.
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A target market is the entire group of people or businesses you want purchasing your product—a large, albeit wishful, group of people. A target audience is a specific collection of people or businesses that you think might actually buy your products or services—a smaller, more practical group of people.
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The best way to find your target audience is by thinking about the specific needs your product or service offering fulfills. For example—still using our automotive manufacturer example—if you’ve learned that it is hard to find vehicles with ample interior space and you have the solution, your next step would be to find out who is in search of a vehicle with a lot of space. Perhaps your target audience is parents, specifically segmented to parents that struggle finding vehicles with enough space to accommodate multiple car seats, gear for their kids and perhaps pets. The more you can break up your target audience into sub-segments as mentioned above, and highlight pain points, the more effectively you can market to them.
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Authentic marketing focuses on building relationships with your target audience—showing them you know them and care about solving their problems.
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Create a solid marketing plan – The more specific and strategic you are in building a plan, the better your conversions will be.
Develop benchmark goals – This will give you clear-cut expectations to hold yourself and team accountable.
Have clear messaging – This is critical to attracting potential buyers and a major mistake a lot of companies make. You did all the hard work to know your target audience, now make sure you’re speaking to them in ways they understand, excite and entice them to engage with you.
Bring in an experienced outsider partner – Business owners are usually so invested in and knowledgeable about their solutions that they fail to look beyond their assumptions to market in ways that resonate with their intended audiences. Many communicate what they want to say, not necessarily what their customer wants to hear. A partner can offer a clearer sense of how a prospective buyer might respond to your marketing, and they can also help you build your plan.
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To have success in your marketing activities, it’s vitally important that you consider what is the target audience and how to find your target market. Afterall, the buying process really is in the hands of your customers. And as a marketing professional, you must create targeted, personalized experiences if you expect prospects to engage with your material when they have so many other brands grabbing for their attention. With a thorough, genuine understanding of your ideal buyer, you can make better informed decisions about channels, media, timing, messaging and more. This knowledge will drive every marketing plan and strategy you build.
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