The 5 steps to identifying your target audience
- Start with a little self-examination: Before you set out to attract people take a careful look at yourself. Your company, like you as an individual, has certain traits and attributes: smart, funny, social… or maybe you are serious, head strong and analytical. As our moms told us as kids, “There is somebody for everyone”. So start by analyzing who you are and who you aren’t! You’ll be more likely to attract the right target audience if you know what you stand for.
- Analyze who you think your target audience is: How far you take your research to uncover who your true audience is will depend on your means. Do you have researchers in your company? Can you hire people to do research for you? Start simple – Look at basic demographics (e.g. age, gender, ethnicity, home ownership, income, geography). Then go a little deeper – Look at psychographics (e.g. their interests, attitudes and lifestyles). Going back to our dating analogy, you’ve already evaluated who you are, now by evaluating who’s out there you can see who the perfect match is! Remember quality is better than quantity. Define the person or group you seek in great detail. If you know exactly who you are looking for you are more likely to find them.
- Determine who is marketing to them: Now that you know who you seek, it is a good idea to consider who else is out there courting them, and how they are courting them. Like dating you want to know who you’re up against and develop a plan to outdo your competitors and attract your heart’s desire.
- Look at the big picture: You have a good idea of who your target audience is now, but remember there is a big world out there. We are all susceptible to what is happening around us: the economy, the weather, trends, fashion, politics. You may have the greatest new design ever developed for a land line phone but that won’t do you much good if the trend is gone. Other shifts are far less obvious. Bottom line is that you need to do your homework and make sure that what you are selling is what your target audience will be interested in today and tomorrow. Look at the big picture.
- Carefully determine why they need you: You’ve analyzed yourself, your audience, your competitors and the current environment. You now need to ask – Why me over somebody else? If you can’t communicate and sell why you’re unique, and why you’re worth a try then you’re not going to woo the audience you covet. Determine what makes you special and then set out to communicate it!
And if you can’t remember these 5 things just go back to the approach you took in dating and finding your partner. These tactics are all there. Now go out and start dating, I mean selling.
