The better you know your customers, the more effectively you sell. One of the most common business mistakes is trying to reach everyone mindlessly. But this way, you only lose your customer.
For effective promotion, you need to know who your customers are and what motivates them. You must be able to identify their needs and pain points, and also remember the triggers. Without this, marketing is just a game of chance.
Key questions for determining the target audience
One of the stages of developing a marketing strategy is a comprehensive study of the target audience. To form a client profile, you must get answers to several important questions:
- Who are your customers — their age, gender, profession, and average income?
- How do they spend their free time — their hobbies, habits, and lifestyle?
- What is important to them — their dreams, values, and fears?
- What triggers motivate them to buy — quality, price, speed, and status?
- What problems does your product solve — benefits, and emotions?
- Where do they look for information — Google, YouTube, Instagram, or forums?
- How do they make their purchase decision — impulsively, or as a result of analysis?
Questions for defining the target audience also help to understand how your potential and current customers feel about a specific product (goods or services). You can find out their interests and preferences by asking the following questions:
- What do they like or dislike about the product? Are there any doubts?
- What emotions does the brand evoke: positive, negative, or neutral?
- What possible improvements would they like to see in the near future?
- Are customers willing to pay more for your product than when buying it from competitors?
- What additional services would they like to use?
Using the 5 W method
There is no universal method for segmenting the target audience; the way to determine it depends primarily on the business specifics. One of the most common schemes is called the 5 W:
- What? (What do you sell?) — Identify the products that interest buyers.
- Who? (Who buys?) — Create a detailed customer profile.
- Why? (Why do they buy?) — Find out what motivates the buyer.
- When? (When will they make the purchase?) — Find out when the client is ready to buy the product or service.
- Where? (Where will the purchase take place?) — Determine the transaction location, for example, online or offline.
How do you find your target audience?
Be sure to create a customer avatar — a clear portrait of the ideal audience. Remember that it is not tied to a specific person, but to a group of people who most often buy your products or use your services.
You can identify the needs of the target audience and create an avatar in several ways:
- By analyzing real customers — those who have already bought your product, perhaps more than once.
- By studying the main competitors, namely, their customer base.
- By conducting relevant surveys and questionnaires — this is the best way to find out the interests of your target audience.
- By carefully studying social media, including Insights and reactions (likes, comments).
- By forming focus groups to discuss the product and find out the main motives and expectations of consumers.
Important! You must understand why you need to analyze the target audience and how to form it. Here, you need to take into account the capabilities of the advertising account on social media, where you plan to connect targeted advertising. Setting up audiences is one of the most important stages of organizing an advertising campaign, and DMark professionals, providing SMM services, never bypass it.
A clear identification and segmentation of the audience gives significantly more sales, because as a result, you know exactly what and how to offer. Knowing the types of target audience (whether it is primary or indirect, broad or narrow), it will also be easier for you to create the right content, launch a target, and build communication.
Want to conduct a professional analysis of the target audience? Email us, and we will help you set up marketing that works.