As we have written about on many occasions before, the starting point of any content marketing strategy is research.
Research forms the bedrock of any content you put out, as it not only gives you the information necessary to write an informed article or blog post, but also gives you an opportunity to figure out what content will resonate with your target audience.
Before you can figure out what content will resonate with your target audience, however, you will first need to identify your target audience.
By being able to identify your target audience with a high degree of precision, you will be better equipped to produce content marketing material that really resonates with your audience and potential customers. This will save you time, money and other resources in the long run, as any efforts that you do put into your content marketing efforts will have a higher likelihood of success.
With this in mind, in this short article, we will give you an overview of what a ‘target audience’ is, as well as some tips on how to identify them.
What is a ‘target audience’?
As the name suggests, a ‘target’ audience is essentially the demographic you are hoping to engage with through your marketing efforts.
This can be understood at various levels of broadness and granularity. For example, at its broadest, your target audience might be a specific age range, professional background, nationality or gender. Conversely, it might refer to a fairly narrow demographic, such as 25 to 30-year-olds in a specific city.
An additional element of identifying a target audience looks beyond simply general demographic details – such as age, nationality or profession – towards behavioural aspects. This covers aspects such as the social media platforms they use, the types of media they prefer, or how they like to shop.
As we can see, a target audience can cover a range of demographic details and individual preferences that allow you to clearly identify your potential customer and the best way of engaging with them.
Now that we have a decent understanding of what a target audience is, let’s take a look at some tips and strategies you can use to help you figure out who your target audience might be.
Tip 1: Know your competitors
If you have a firm idea of who your direct competitors are, this will also give you a sense of who your target audience might be – after all, you will more than likely be trying to sell to the same demographic!
If you are using your competitor to find out this information, however, be sure to keep in mind the possibility that your target audiences might not perfectly overlap. There might be some slight differences in what you have on offer that will shape what kind of customers are drawn to your brand or business.
Knowing your competitors will also give you a sense of what you can do better and how you can make your marketing strategies more effective.
Tip 2: Create a perfect customer
To help you identify your target audience, a useful exercise to conduct is to imagine your perfect customer.
Although we know in the real world that there is no ‘perfect’ customer, thinking about who this might be if such a thing were possible is a useful exercise that will help you to identify the key characteristics, traits and other idiosyncrasies that your target demographic will tend to possess.
Once you have created this ‘ideal’ customer in your head, you can then use this profile to start generating ideas about how to most effectively communicate with them.
Tip 3: Monitor comments and other forms of user engagement
An important but often overlooked source of information on your target audience is user comments, feedback and other forms of engagement.
If you are publishing content to a platform that allows user comments to be submitted or that supports direct user engagement, this is an incredibly valuable source of insight. By trawling through these comments and forms of engagement, you will be able to build a profile of the types of individuals attracted to your business or product.
Be sure to also pay attention to any comments, critiques or compliments they make. You can use this information to help refine the content you put out in the future.
Tip 4: Collect survey data
One of the most direct ways of figuring out who your target audience is and what they respond to is to simply collect survey data that contains this information.
Just a few years ago, collecting survey data would have been a time-consuming, laborious and expensive task. With the rise of platforms such as Google Surveys and SurveyMonkey, however, this task has become easier and more accessible than ever. In just a few minutes, you can have a professional survey ready to deploy that will collect masses of valuable data and customer insights for you.
The main obstacle with this type of research is that participation will often have to be incentivised, though surveys can typically be built into your website to make it as easy as possible to complete.
Tip 5: Reflect on previous successes
When you are trying to figure out who your target audience is, don’t be shy about reflecting on your past successes.
For example, if you ran a marketing campaign earlier in the year that got great traction, look back at exactly what you did and how people reacted to it. This will give you valuable insights into what sort of content resonates with your customers and can help you to identify them with precision.
Although our focus is often on what new methods or approaches we can try to engage customers in the future, it is also important to reflect on past successes.
Get to know your target audience
Getting to know your target audience is by no means an easy process. However, it is an important part of devising and delivering a marketing strategy that will resonate with your audience and have better success in the long run. Content marketing can often be resource heavy, particularly where material has to be thoroughly researched and go through several rounds of review before it is published. As such, to ensure that your efforts do not go to waste, knowing exactly who you are looking to connect with will ensure that your chances of success are higher.
If you want to create compelling content that connects with audiences and helps to drive user engagement, feel free to reach out to Purecontent today! Figuring out what will resonate with your audience is never easy. However, with a little bit of expert guidance, we can help you to create authentic content that will resonate with your audience and increase engagement. Book a one-on-one consultation and get started today!
