How To Find Your Brand’s Target Audience: 3-Step Process

October 19, 2021
Authored by:
Kari Amarnani

What is a target audience? Simply, it’s the specific group of consumers that you believe would be the most intrigued and interested by your products and services. 

It’s totally in your favor to provide your target audience with a personalized buying experience, which gives you a favorable brand reputation and increases your visibility and circulation in the industry.

Target audiences comprise of specific demographics, such as:

  • Gender
  • Age
  • Interests and specialties
  • Occupation
  • Income
  • Location
  • And so much more.

To find the right target audience for your brand, it’s essential that you take the time to understand what your business is all about—only then will you know the right market for your products and services. It’s not always as simple, so learning about strategies can help you make more informed decisions.

Some industries have a pretty straightforward target audience. For example, a lip gloss brand would predominantly target women as their primary demographic, but there’s more to uncover when you dive a little deeper. 

What if the lip gloss business specializes in semi-shiny-coverage products? Then, it would be more practical to target adult women, from the ages of 18 and onwards. And this realization potentially impacts the way you would market the brand

Understanding your target audience to a tee comes with an avalanche of benefits for you and your consumers. Your business gets a firmer grasp on its marketing and advertising methods, and consumers find the products and services that are best suited for them. It’s a win for everyone.

The Benefits Of Finding Your Target Audience

As a marketer, determining your target audience is not just ideal—it’s vital. This information positively affects every move and business decision, executing the perfect personas to reach your intended market. 

Statistics show that 80% of consumers prefer to do business with companies that offer personalized interactions. It’s no surprise that customers gravitate towards brands that resonate with them on a meaningful level. 

That means it’s up to you to provide them with a personalized buying experience—and how do you do that without understanding them? Learning about your target audience gives you a preemptive edge that tells consumers, “Looking for this? We understand, and we got you!”

If you plan ahead, you can market your products and services to grab consumers’ attention among the sea of competition that probably didn’t do as much extensive research as you did, giving you another edge in standing out as a brand.

One of the most significant benefits of finding your target audience is that it increases your return on investments (ROI). A business is about a mission, but it’s also an investment. Without returns, it would be a road to nowhere. 

If you find and understand your target audience, they’ll feel connected to you. If your target audience connects with you, they will likely purchase your products and services. And if you consistently provide them with successful buying experiences, they will return for more purchases. Eventually, you get a base of loyal customers and regular ROIs.

Talk about the best cycle ever.

But before you get to reap these rewards, you have to put in the work. A great way to start is to learn about the steps and strategies that go into finding your target audience.

3 Important Steps To Find Your Target Audience

These are practical steps and strategies to help you determine your target audience and curate your marketing structure and personas accordingly:

Step 1: Conduct market research.

To do market research, you must perform a SWOT analysis, which assesses your brand’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Identifying these answers gives you a greater understanding of your business, which is key to determining your target audience.

Once you’ve attained the framework of your brand, you should be able to grasp your intended market further, not only on primary demographics like age, gender, etc., but also identifying motivations, competition, buying habits, and so much more.

A SWOT analysis provides you insight into the best positioning of your brand to engage with your target audience. Sometimes, the answer is not on the surface, and you need a structured and detailed game plan to reach your customers and rake sales. This gives you the awareness you need to make the most suitable decisions.

Lastly, remember that this isn’t perfect. It’s merely insight, and who knows, it may not serve you with preferred results, and that’s okay. Experience also plays a significant role in finding your target audience. Not to mention that society is ever-changing; what works today may not work tomorrow. Don’t sweat it—just keep rolling with it.

Step 2: Learn about consumer purchase paths and pain points.

It’s not enough to know who your target market is—you also need to understand their motives and intentions behind every purchase. This is where brand personas come in handy. Depending on their purchase paths and pain points, you can curate a persona that rectifies these hindrances. 

It’s imperative to ask yourself a couple of questions:

  • What is my target audience trying to achieve?
  • What are their doubts about this purchase?
  • How can I provide a solution to their problem?

If they’re doubtful about the prices, take on a brand persona that reassures them that you care about them getting their money’s worth, and they deserve quality offerings. If they’re second-guessing the effectiveness, you can feature compilations of positive feedback, stating that customer satisfaction is the driving force behind your business.

This stage allows you to build a connection with them, alleviating doubts and replacing them with solutions. Create tailored messages—giving your target audience the impression that you are speaking directly to them and you’re ready to fix problems and serve them at every step of the way.

Step 3: Observe your existing customers.

If you have existing customers, have you ever wondered why they stuck around? If you haven’t, you should because it is a helpful indication of your key demographic.

Don’t shy away from getting to know your customers. They were once consumers before they hitched on to your business services. Taking the time to learn about your existing customers gives you an idea of your target audience and how to reach them.

Closely examine your website and social media analytics to better understand the demographics that gravitate towards you and go from there. Which website pages are they visiting the most? Optimize it, and apply the appropriate persona from Step 2.

What kind of people view your social media accounts? Knowing the answer allows you to modify your profiles in a way that would suit them the best. Eventually, these actions reinforce your brand placement, and your target audience may eventually start finding you on their own.

The Impact Of Finding Your Target Audience

Why is determining your target audience so necessary? 

The ultimate goal of most businesses is to have a strong base of loyal and committed customers. You get to sleep at night knowing that you provide optimal customer satisfaction, hone a connection with your happy customers, and receive a return on investments (ROI) to keep your business growing.

It isn’t merely about having people make purchases. The more you understand your target audience, the more you know the pinnacles of where your business can reach to. Not only is it a practical move, but it’s also a pretty fulfilling feat as a brand owner.

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