Anyone looking to build a successful business wants their target audience to simply crave their products or services. And yet, such an audience definitely isn’t given to you on a platter!
Think of marketing and branding as just two puzzle pieces that make up the whole picture — your business. If any piece doesn’t fit well, your puzzle won’t show the picture in its full glory, thus giving you that well-known feeling of satisfaction.
Similarly, your target audience is a valuable puzzle piece you ought to discover early on when creating your business. But it’s not all as simple as deciding who you want to market your products to.
Proper research and knowing how to define your brand and what you offer are key to figuring out who your audience is and where to find it. Down below, we detail the five steps you should take to ensure your brand message finds the exact people who’ll know to appreciate it.
5 Steps to Identifying and Defining the Right Target Market
Understand Your Brand
Every aspect of your business depends on how well you understand your brand. Therefore, before even thinking about the age group you want your audience to fall into, consider what your brand is.
Defining your brand includes thinking about what you want to portray to your audience, the image you want to promote, and your unique value proposition. If you don’t know how valuable your brand can be to your audience, it’s unlikely anyone else will realise it anytime soon.
When you understand your brand well, you shouldn’t have trouble implementing that knowledge in all aspects of your business. And it will come useful for everything — sales, marketing, social media, customer service, and so much more.
Beyond that, understanding your brand will ensure you match all the exterior to the interior. Everything linked to your brand will affect the consumers, from products, logo, and packaging to how you conduct yourself online and your website setup. It’s up to you to decide if that’s going to be a positive influence. Chances are, though, that if you know your brand and what it stands for, you will have an easier time conveying that to your audience.
Define the Problems You Will Resolve
All your services or products are likely to resolve a certain need or problem for your audience. But needs and wants vary as much as there are people around the world — so being specific is key.
An important part of defining your audience is knowing who will seek out your products or services and benefit from them. The mistake some businesses make here, however, is that they stop short of researching the audiences thoroughly.
It’s the easiest thing in the world to say that your company caters to men over 50 in the UK. But that definition is too vast; it encompasses too many people and doesn’t even consider their personalities or preferences.
Instead, it’s imperative that you pinpoint your target audience by being as detailed about it as possible. It’s not just about the age group or the location. The more information you have, the better, so include ethnicities, common interests, and specific parts of the country where you want to market your products.
By learning more about your audience in this segment, you should be able to discover a group of people that would be most inclined to buy your products or services. With proper research, ensuring your business thrives doesn’t have to be hard. It should go smoothly when your specific target market (no matter how small or large) recognises that your business:
- Provides the exact services they need
- Offers the value they’ve been looking for
- Resolves needs, wants, or problems better than your competitors.
Specify Which Group Shares Your Aims and Values
Setting up your brand includes crafting a company mission statement that explains all the values and ideals you go by. Unsurprisingly, your ideal target audience should agree with you on your mission statement and share some, if not all, the principles.
Essentially, your mission statement lets your audience get to know your brand on a deeper level. In return, they may recognise some of their own characteristics in your brand, which could eventually make them more loyal.
In the end, your mission statement can make all the difference when it comes to attracting the right audience. If they see their beliefs reflected in your brand, they’ll be keener to opt for you over your competitors!
Think of a Target Audience Persona
This may not be the first time you have heard the term “persona”, but you may have ignored it before. We’re here to tell you that creating one should simplify finding your right audience. After all, it will help you to thoroughly understand your typical customer!
While creating this persona, remember not to limit yourself to just the general demographics. Instead, take the time to figure out which traits, interests and behaviours your typical customer should have or display.
As you cannot predict how the market may surprise you from time to time, sticking to your buyer persona ought to make it easier to market the right products to the right people. And trust us, there is a persona that’s perfect for your business. Your customers, no matter how different they seem, actually do share some attributes that you can use to your advantage.
Related content:
How to Identify Market Segments and Select Target Markets
Be Diligent About Your Research
Finally, remember not to rush through this whole process. Yes, you may be content with a semi-researched target audience that “does the job” for now. But you cannot know how many opportunities you may miss out on only because you didn’t think thorough research mattered that much!
Consider where your company would be without consumers. If you couldn’t make any sales or drive the audience to your stores, you would be left with nothing and would likely go under fast.
To avoid that, do what most successful businesses do — view consumers as an investment. Ensure they remain satisfied and loyal by knowing them like the back of your hand.
Better yet, learn about their wants and needs, as well as likes and dislikes, so that you can make some crucial changes to your business. Be open to some adjustments that would help them see your company in a better light.
After all, your audience is the one who directly influences your earnings. No matter your business’ potential, your success is intimately linked to consumers and how well you understand them!
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