Marketing is all about getting the right people to notice and take interest in your brand, all about turning the right people into customers. The reason the “right people” must be specified is because, unfortunately, not every single person will qualify as being a potential customer. If you try to go after everyone, your marketing will have much less success than if you focus on those that really count. 

Every business has its target audience, even if this has yet to be discovered.

What Is a Target Audience?

In marketing, a target audience is those “right people”. They are your ideal customers that you want to make sure you’re targeting with your marketing. Some companies may have a wide enough customer base that they will want to break these people up into smaller groups in order to more effectively target the individuals – and each of these groups is also known as a target audience.

Having a target audience behind every marketing tactic that you take on isn’t just recommended. It’s essential.

The Need for a Target Audience

With a target audience, the goal is to narrow down the focus of your marketing. By defining the sort of people that you are aiming to reach, you can better determine how to best do so, and, thus, have more effective marketing campaigns.

Determining Your Target Audience

The first step to pinning down your target audience is focusing on who your products and services are actually for. Your current customers definitely fit into the target audience. Any potential customers that you know you have a chance with should be included as well, but be wary of a target audience that is too broad. 

If needed, you can break up the whole of customers you want to target into smaller groupings. For example, if you sell toys, you might want to target the children themselves because kids will beg their parents when there’s something they really want, but you may also want to target the parents that would actually be making the purchase. Or, if you offer B2B services such as accounting, you may need to separate out the different sorts of professionals that may need your services into their own target audiences. It can even be narrowed down further once you get into the specifics of these potential customers.

These segmented target audiences are what need to be the primary guiding factor behind every marketing endeavor. They are simply too important to not consider.

Revealing the Importance of the Audience to Marketing Campaigns

A marketing plan that doesn’t prioritize the target audience will not do you a whole lot of good. It starts by knowing who your target audience is, but it doesn’t end there. 

The most important thing is to center marketing around this target audience. 

Here’s why:

Allows Businesses to Focus In On the Customers That Matter

Keeping your target audience always in mind ensures that none of your marketing efforts go to waste. Instead of spending all of your marketing budget reaching those that don’t even have a need for your products or services, you make sure that the value of every penny is maximized. 

When marketing campaigns are properly focused on one specific target audience, businesses are able to focus solely on the customers that matter most. 

There can be no denying the value of this, as it will allow you the best possible return on investment. The customers in your chosen target audience should be those that you know are interested in your brand, or will be once they’ve heard of it. They are those that you are almost guaranteed to get a sale from. By directing your marketing spend in the direction of just these important people, you get the most out of your marketing investment. 

Enables a More Focused Plan

Having a target audience is not just a matter of knowing who you are marketing to. It can also help to inform how you are going to go about marketing to them. 

With a target audience to guide your decision, businesses are enabled to craft a much more focused plan for their marketing. 

Without the guidance of a target audience, creating a marketing plan that you know will work for a specific brand is pretty much impossible. There’s just nothing to guide you there. 

Knowing your target audience lets you determine:

• Attainable Campaign Goals
• Ideal Tactical Opportunities
• Marketing Messages
• Communication Style
• Ad Placement Locations
• And More…

With a specified target audience informing each and every one of these elements, you have a much more focused marketing plan. This highly-focused plan will get you reaching your marketing goals in no time.

Creates More Effective Campaigns

All of what having a target audience does for you combines to bring success to your marketing. By narrowing things down to the customers that really matter and using this target audience to guide a plan with more overall focus, we are able to create campaigns that are much more effective.

By targeting the right people and using knowledge of this audience to target them in the right way, you set yourself up for success. 

And that’s with every bit of the marketing budget bringing you steps closer to your goals. Having a target audience makes the marketing plan much more cost-effective, as nothing goes to waste. Knowing you have the target audience to guide you means knowing that every dollar put in is taking you in the right direction. 

That right direction is your brand’s marketing success. Because if you know how to find your target audience and make this work for your marketing, you will have an extremely effective strategy. 

Letting a Focus on the Audience Lead Your Marketing Strategy

Now that you understand the importance of having an audience for marketing, it’s time to get started with yours. 

Naturally, determining your brand’s distinct target audience is the very first step in the process of targeting.

Determine Your Target Audience

There are many ways that you can narrow in on the audience that you want to direct your marketing towards. Selling toys, your data may reveal that many of your products widely appeal to girls between the ages of six and ten. The business selling accounting services to other companies may find they have their best outlook with the CEOs who have a certain number of employees. 

Keep in mind that you don’t have to completely limit yourself to one specific target audience. It can make marketing more effective to go after both kids and parents separately and target small companies and large corporations with different campaigns. 

In fact, it is wise to remember that your customer base can be composed of a wide variety of different audiences. 

Still, you have to do some refining of target audiences. It’s just not realistic to aim for everybody unless you’re a really well-known brand. In fact, niche targeting has been the best option for many marketing plans. 

Getting specific with who you want to target allows you your best chance at making your marketing exactly what will work for that group of people. So, instead of just picking a category and specifying with simply basic demographics, look into all those smaller sets of characteristics as well. Really get to know the individual that you are targeting. 

Get to Know The Needs and Wants of Your Buyer Persona

Before getting started on any marketing endeavors using targeting, you need to really know the target audience. This is more than just having a list of certain characteristics. 

Creating buyer personas is a great way to really get to know the target. Build your buyer persona, and then dig deep into who they are. 

Ask yourself questions about them to help yourself figure them out. Better yet: ask members of the target audience about themselves to really discover the information you need. 

Ask:

• What are their priorities in their daily life?
• What are their long-term goals?
• What are their reasons for wanting or needing your products or services?
• What are their pain points or areas they lack in that you can provide the solution for?
• Where can their lives improve with the help of your brand?

Ask about the needs and wants of your buyer persona. This is the research that will inform your marketing plan. 

Put the Audience at the Forefront of All Your Marketing Tactics

With all the information about your target audience that you can gather, it’s time to actually do something. Not just something. You need to keep your target audience in mind for every aspect of the marketing that you undertake. 

Letting an understanding of the audience lead the way is what will ensure each element goes the right way. 

This includes:

1. Brand Image

The overall brand itself needs to appeal to its ideal customers. The only way to ensure this is to consider them before creating the brand.

2. Marketing Messages

Everything you say on behalf of the brand should be said with a specific audience in mind. People know if a message is meant for them. If you’re putting out marketing messages that are broad enough for anyone, nobody will get the feeling that it’s meant for them and it will not resonate. Craft each message for the particular person you plan to receive it.

3. Digital Locations

When you have just the right advertisement ready to go out, the target audience can also help you determine its placement. With digital ads, you can find a huge array of options to allow you to get targeting just right. Don’t neglect to take advantage of these.

4. Search Engine Optimization Strategy

An SEO strategy is all about optimizing your website so that the right people make it on the page. Every effort towards your search engine goals has to be done with targeting in mind. The target audience can inform the keywords you target and also the way that you find success with your chosen keywords. 

5. Content Marketing

Any piece of content that you put out should be written for its specific audience. This allows you to optimize for the right keywords, say the right things, use the right tone, and get content published in the right places. A target audience leading the way is how content marketing, as with all other types, brings you success.

Don’t Underestimate the Importance of Your Audience

Having a target audience, and prioritizing that target audience, is a critical component of a successful marketing strategy. The audience couldn’t be of a higher importance, as they are the ones your marketing messages are really speaking to and, hopefully, are the ones that will be making a purchase. 

If you keep the audience in mind every step of the way, you can create a highly-effective campaign that will allow you to reach your marketing goals. 
If you need help getting the attention of your target audience, you can always talk to the marketing experts at Regex SEO.