If you’re not incredibly clear on who your target audience is—for your branding in general, for a specific marketing channel, or for a certain campaign—you need to take a step back to identify it. You can determine who your target audience is by looking at who is engaging with your product, your brand, and your marketing.
- Start with your customers
Your customers are the people who are using your product or service, so clearly, the positioning of your offering, the solution you presented, your marketing, or a combination of these worked. That’s why this is the perfect place to start. First, look at the demographics of your customers. Next, it’s time to talk to your customers. This is the best way to get an idea of why they love your brand, your product, or team.
- Look at your social followers
Your social followers are another existing audience that you can look at to see who your current marketing is appealing to. Even more, it gives you an idea of the consumers genuinely interested in your brand. According to Sprout Social, the most common reasons people follow brands on social channels are to get access to discounts, to keep up with company news, and to find out about new products or services.
- Dig into your content analytics
The next existing audience you need to take some time to dig into is your website visitors. Who is reading your content already? Who is downloading your whitepapers? Who is engaging with your videos? Google Analytics is the natural place to start when you’re looking for this type of information.
- Check out your competitors
You have competitors. Regardless of your product, your offering, and target audience, you have competition. And you can use them. Take a look at who your competitor is targeting in their marketing. Analyze their ads, their messaging, and their brand to put together a target audience and see how it compares with yours—including how it overlaps and how it differs.
- Set your parameters
This last step might seem like an outlier in the process, but it is super important: You need to identify who your customer isn’t. Take a look at all of your information—your customer interviews, your social following, your website visitors, and your competition’s comparable audiences. Then identify the gaps that you definitely don’t serve. Setting your parameters will help guide your marketing—and even your business strategy.
