Target Audience a.k.a. Business BFF
Your target audience is the foundation for all of your brand development efforts. After all, how can you appeal to someone or a group of someones if you don’t know who they are? That would be like drinking a few beers, blindfolding yourself, having someone spin you a thousand times and then attempting to hit a 6 square inch dartboard from 25 foot away.
You can’t. Well, it’s possible, but it would be coincidence and it might happen 1 in 1000 times.
So, what is the target audience? It is a group of potential and/or current customers, for which your product (or service) is aimed, that is divided based on demographic, geographic, and psychographic factors – or some combination of those factors. I like to think of your target audience as an imaginary person who is like your business BFF. You know them on a deep, personal level and you feel comfortable creating for them, talking to them, and even selling to them when they approach you for a solution to their problem.
In Strategic Social Media Marketing** Mahoney and Tang Tang (2017) say,
“You will want to identify a larger target audience to reach through mass media messages (e.g., women ages 25-54); a smaller niche audience to target through diffusion and community social media messages (e.g., mothers who enjoy yoga and live in southeaster Pennsylvania); and individual users (e.g., Kathy, who drives a Prius and composts her own food) to mobilize into lifelong brand advocates. For every goal, these three audience populations (target, niche, individual) should be identified.
**This is a fantastic book that I highly recommend to any small business owner.
Here, let me bombard you with questions you can ask yourself about them to get the brain juices flowing.
How old are they?
Are they male or female or does it matter?
Where do they live? If geographical location isn’t a factor, think about things like are they living on 60 acres of land or in a loft apartment in the city.
What stage of life are they in?
Are they single? Married?
Have kids? If they have kids, are they toddlers, school age, teenagers, or grown?
What are they doing for a living? Something blue-collar and labor intensive? White-collar and professional?
What is an approximate income range for the house?
What do they do for fun? Are they outdoorsy? Adventure-seekers? Avid readers?
Are they laid-back? More conservative?
What is their sense of humor like?
What kind of movies and music do they like?
Are they introverts or extroverts?
What does a fun night look like for them?
Are they more go-with-the-flow or planned every minute? Somewhere in-between?
What is their clothing style? Home décor style?
Where else are they shopping?
Now that the brain juices are flowing, how do you feel about it? Do you think you know them well? Do you know them on a BFF level? Like sleepovers and gossip kind of know them?
Well, I hate to tell you, but there’s one more question. It’s a hard one. You have to think about it on many different levels. Practically, logically, emotionally….
What solution is your product or service offering your audience? Why do they need to buy it? What will it give them?
We’ll talk about that more as we go along, but it’s important and it is hard, so start thinking now.