How To Determine A Target Audience
As a business owner just starting out, it is crucial to understand who your target audience is. If you are unfamiliar with what a target audience is, essentially, it’s who your customers are. This dictates everything from your branding, operations, sales, and more - a lack of understanding of your target audience can prevent your business from being successful. In this blog, we will walk you through how to determine your target audience so you can set your business up for success.
Understand your brand identity
Believe it or not, you don’t have to do an extensive amount of market research to determine your target audience. The first, and most important step, is to understand your brand identity. What is your product or service? What is the mission of your business? What do you stand for? Does your business have a charitable component? Does your business provide a good or service at a specific price? These are all important questions you have to ask yourself when determining the identity of your brand.
Tip: You’ll want to have either a unique product/service offering, OR a unique brand identity. Regardless of industry, this is how sales are captured. Looking at close competitors can help you distinguish how your brand stands out, especially if the product/service is not unique for the industry.
What are the selling points of your product or brand
When determining your target audience, it is important to look at your brand through the eyes of a consumer. For example, if your business sells coffee mugs, think about the reasons why someone would buy a coffee mug. Does the coffee mug keep your coffee warmer? Does the coffee mug keep your coffee warmer for longer periods? Does the coffee mug fit better into stand car cup-holders? Is the price of your coffee mug better than those of competitors? Is the design of your coffee mug unique? Does your brand give money to charity? Is your brand sustainable?
Understanding the selling points - or features and benefits - of your product/service and brand can help you paint a picture of who is likely to buy.
Who has a need for your product or brand
Let’s take the example of the coffee mugs, and two sample selling points: your coffee mug keeps your coffee warmer for longer periods, and your coffee mug fits better into standard car cup-holders.
From this, you can make the assumption that people who would want to buy your coffee mug drive cars, perhaps for long periods of time, and they want to make their coffee last (and not waste it because it gets cold). You can then make the assumption that these customers could be traveling, commuting to work, and could have busy schedules. Who are these customers? They are working professionals, parents, and college students (to name a few).
Note that it is also important to not ‘lump together’ your assumptions. You can have different customer profiles based on the different needs. For example, someone may buy the coffee mug simply because it makes their coffee last longer without even caring about how it fits in a cup holder.
So there you have it! While this blog provides a very basic overview of determining your target audience - you have more resources available to you! Simply fill out our “contact us” form for tailored advice! As always, Helm & Stern Branding is here to help you with all your business needs.