As a brand, of course you want to reach as many audience as you can. However, you cannot start with randomly pick anyone to be aware of your business. When you do this, you won’t gain many conversions the way you’ve expected. It is better to target only people you know will be interested in your product. But determining the right target audience also can be very tricky.
Sometimes we have relied so much in traditional way of targeting where you solely segment your audience by their demography. It might work offline, but in digital world it can produce less satisfying result. So, how should you do effective targeting?
- Ask yourself a question
You can begin by creating a list of questions that will show the condition of your brand. Do the brand appeal to the mass market or do you belong to niche segmentation? Do you feel the need to adjust in order to approach the target audience? This kind of questions will help you understand your business more and at the same time, the potential market that will use your product.
Don’t forget to track the purchase journey as well to understand the way your customers think before they buy. What’s the process behind it? If you were them, what would make you consider this product instead of the others?
- Identify your potential audience
Consumers of a certain product usually share one or more characteristics. When you understand this, you’ll be able to project what kind of people you should target. What is the similarity they have?
As a start, you can look up for some basic information such as age, gender, income, and education level. After that, try to go to their interests or hobbies. Combine the possible demographic and psychographic data and write down the traits of your customers. Try to find as much information as you can get to make this profile more accurate.
- Stick to the profile, but don’t limit the reach
By now, you have gathered enough data of your target audience and you want to approach them. Re-check the audience profile you’ve already have in your hand and see if it is too narrow.
Yes, being specific is important, but don’t let it limit your capacity to reach wider audience. There are several other things that can affect customer’s decision such as emotional value and momentum. Besides, the core problem is the main reason of why people use a product regardless of the profile of your consumers.
- Watch your competitors
Creating a competitive analysis can be another way to understand your target market better. What makes your competitor able to reach their audience? What do people say about them on social media? Why do people like them? Keep looking for their vulnerable point and try to fill the gap for unsatisfied customers.
Those are several strategies that can help you to do effective audience targeting. Don’t forget to keep up with the latest change and update the data. Do these steps regularly, every 6 to 12 months depending on what industry you are in.
