June 23rd, 2020 | Updated on August 20th, 2020
As exciting it is to kick off a new venture, handling and managing business operations is equally challenging.
From hiring employees, overlooking finances, to executing a competent marketing plan, all this is nothing less than a rollercoaster ride. Unfortunately, companies end up following the ‘capture all market’ approach when it comes to marketing.
Do you think it is a smart choice? Usually, businesses are producing a product that caters to a specific market.
If you have a fast-food chain in a posh area, you must be targeting millennials who fall in the upper-middle-class range since these people will show interest in your offerings.Therefore, instead of chasing after everyone, you have to focus on your target audience.
Are you wondering who your target audience is? Defining a target market lays a foundation for all your marketing strategies.
Understand the nature of your business and build demographics – age groups, gender, social status, geographical location, allowing youto target the right people.
If you are running ecommerce then, you need to understand the safety of your target audience and for that, SSL certificate is an essential security that each website must have.To help you out, here are some tactics to identify your target audience.
1. Generate High-Quality Gated Content
In the 21st century; content is still the king because your marketing strategies can’t function without it. Similarly, when businesses want to target audiences, they put in efforts to generate gated content.
How is it different? Unlike standard material, which is readily available, gated content requires some information in return for accessing the content. It is up to businesses; you can ask for an email address or contact.
Otherwise, you can also play with the requirements by asking for social media shares or likes. The best examples of gated content are eBooks, webinars, and content upgrades.
Honestly, gated content can be in any form, but has to be something valuable for which the audience doesn’t mind giving their details.
These email addresses and contact information will help you recognize people who have a keen interest in your product/service offering – the target audience.
2. Use Google Analytics
Out of many wonders of technology, Google Analytics is one of them. It consists of tons of data about your audience, giving you exclusive insights into the user’s purchase patterns.
Google Analytics gives you an option to target audience, allowing you to understand the tactics before calling the shots. You have to enter an URL, click on the ad, and Google analytics audience will appear.
It automatically identifies people who fall into your pre-built demographics. It also adds people based on their behavioral patterns – time spent on the website, engagement with products, made a purchase, etc.
Moreover, it uncovers high-value customers who have made a worthy purchase from your business. It helps you identify your target audience and lets you explore new markets by giving you insights into changing customer trends.
3. Interact With Your Followers
Previously, social media was only an entertainment platform where people used to interact with their friends. Even though it has become the epitome of marketing now, you can use it as a tool to learn about audiences.
Surprisingly, you can recognize your potential customers by being an active member of this community since it is all about investing little time.
Make an effort to respond to every comment and message you receive because every interaction is an opportunity to understand the audience.
Likewise, you can participate in Facebook groups, involve yourself in discussions, and get incredible insights into things that are important to users.
Revolve your social media strategies around customers – ask them product features they like to see or what grabs their attention.
4. Hop Into Facebook Insights
Facebook is one of the most versatile marketing tools in today’s era. It does not only provide businesses with an online marketing forum but gives them access to a vast customer pool.
It provides page owners with powerful insights on the audience’s behaviour. Thus, you can determine the demographics of your active users and share topics of common interests.
If you open your business page, you will come across the column of insights right on the top. It gives you insights through graphs and charts – for instance, it would show 70% engagement from women, aging 26-40 years of age.
Hence, identifying the target audience on your behalf. Do you know which is the best part? You don’t have to spend a penny to catch a glimpse of these insights since they are available free of cost.
5. Create Valuable Marketing Personas
A marketing persona is a sketch of the key for your potential segment of the audience. These personas help you deliver content that is useful and relevant to your audience.
So, how about you focus on in-depth marketing personas? Think about who would want your product offerings and then create personas to represent them. You can break these by age, gender, location, and income levels.
It helps you focus on the bigger picture while identifying the unique needs of multiple people to assist them with their purchase decisions.
As you develop your marketing strategies, you can keep these ideal folks in mind to ensure that everything you do aligns with your target audience’s interest.
Conclusion
We are moving towards personalized marketing tactics,which won’t become possible until you identify your target audience.
After all, you have to concentrate on people who have a genuine interest in your offerings to generate leads. Thus, instead of chasing after a large pool of audience, limit your strategies to a particular market segment.
