How would you describe yourself? Are you a real expert or someone who knows little about something?
The answer to this question depends on how you define being an expert. You’re probably not an expert if you’re talking about being knowledgeable about a particular topic. But if you’re referring to having a high level of expertise in a specific field, then you’re an expert.
Being an expert means knowing a lot about a subject. This knowledge comes from years of experience and learning. Experts also tend to be very passionate about their area of expertise. They love sharing their knowledge and helping others.
It is common for business owners to find or develop a product and then find buyers. This is where most business owners make a mistake. They think they know who their key audience is. Unfortunately, their assumption is often based on nothing.
Knowing how to connect with your target audience online is critical for achieving your brand’s digital strategy.
The quickest and easiest way is first to target a niche market and then find out what they need before you provide a product or service to satisfy that need.
To reach your target audience like a true expert you need to go through the following steps:
- Know Who Your Customers Are: Knowing your customer or target demographics is vital for any business endeavour. Successful business owners understand what their customers want and the most effective way of making their product or service available. The depth of knowledge is also crucial – it requires knowing more than their names, ages, income level, education level, job title, favourite social networks, college students, etc.
- Understand Their Needs: Knowing and understanding customer needs is at the centre of every successful business, whether it sells directly to individuals or other companies. Once you have this knowledge, you can use it to persuade potential and existing customers that buying from you is in their best interests. When it comes to digital marketing, truly understanding your customer’s needs helps you to know what marketing material and marketing channel to use that will help to improve your conversion rate.
- Create Content That Fits Them: You want content that creates a lasting impression with your target audience and has to be made not solely to sell. Good content should be interesting, valuable, original and helpful enough for your target audience to make more than just one click. When creating content such as a blog post, never copy text from somewhere else. As a reputable brand, you must avoid plagiarism by citing research and using your own words to describe the concept. When conducting research, always use multiple sources. This gives more credibility to your content. Give your content a unique structure, so it stands out from your competitors. Use your own style and reasoning to create your content.
- Build Trust with Quality Content: Building trust is an all-important aspect of content marketing. To do so, you need to focus on value, not self-promotion. You must also prioritise authenticity and develop your unique brand voice whenever you engage with your audience as part of your marketing efforts.
- Promote Your Product or Service: You can make new contacts and reach out to potential customers by participating in trade shows, conferences, community activities and other networking events on social media platforms. Promoting your content through social channels is an excellent way to advertise online for free. Doing this will help you reach your customers directly, and it’s an excellent means to give potential clients more info on your product or service.
But in this article, we shall focus on the first step, i.e., knowing who your customers are.
Defining Your Target Audience
Your target audience is the person who pays you and influences the person who pays you.
And unless you are Google, your core audience cannot be everyone! It would help if you were specific. You need to identify your niche to understand how to dominate it.
Define your marketing message’s specific group of people or customer persona you want to reach with your marketing campaign. These types of target audience/people are interested in your products and services and will buy them.
It would help if you were laser-focused on discovering your core audience, i.e. those who are most likely to purchase after viewing your ad.
Start by looking at a broad group and then narrow down your audience. Build your consumer or buyer persona, i.e. a generalised representation of who and how your ideal buyers would be like.
Determine who is already using your services or products by inspecting your competitors or your existing customer base (that’s if you already have customers).
Analyse the data from social media channels, Google Analytics or any other analytics or social listening software you may have at your disposal.
Also, take a critical look at the results from previous advertising campaigns.
Study the age, location, language, income, behavioural characteristics, demographic markers, interests, position, etc., of your customers.
These are all vital information that will help to reveal some common characteristics that unite them.
Don’t be afraid to get highly specific and go into great detail with your consumer or buyer persona. Good target audience research will allow you to get into much finer detail.
You can use the power of social media influencers or influencer marketing to reach your target audience more effectively through your social media posts.
Determine who is already using your services or products by inspecting your competitors or your existing customer base (that's if you already have customers). Click To TweetA word of caution, though. Don’t get carried away and become a creep or do anything illegal. Nobody likes a stalker.
Use Data to Determine Your Target Market
It would not be easy to reach your target audience if you aren’t sure who they are.
Playing a guessing game isn’t good enough; you need data to make informed decisions for your business and know exactly who you’re catering to.
Otherwise, you’ll waste time, money and resources marketing to the wrong group of people with little to no success to show for it.
Use your website and social media analytics data to determine and define your audience.
This data will tell you your audience’s demographics, what content of yours they consume the most on social media and where they’re most active, e.g. Instagram and LinkedIn.
Google Analytics is your best bet for narrowing down your target.
The benefits of using data are innumerable. For instance, Statista found that in 2018, 52% of website traffic worldwide was generated through mobile phones.
The Importance of a Target Market
You’ll waste time and money if you market your product to the wrong people.
Though it is possible to sell to everyone, your marketing message must be directed to a particular group for it to be meaningful and effective. Content marketing plays a significant role in this area by helping you generate leads and conversions.
Your marketing message cannot speak directly to your customers and talk to their kids, parents, spouses and work colleagues. It would be best if you were specific, especially with content marketing.
You must understand your customers and address them at the right time, through the proper channels and in their language. As mentioned earlier, you can do this by building a consumer persona.
With your audience in mind, you can create a digital marketing strategy based on creating relevant content for Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter and other platforms.
Use your audience’s knowledge to create content that resonates with their needs and interests.
Using your blog or creating videos are other ways to create content that matters to your ideal customer.
Otherwise, you'll waste time, money and resources marketing to the wrong group of people with little to no success to show for it. Click To TweetYour Target Market Is What Defines Your Product
When choosing a target audience, it is essential to consider what they need. What can make their life easier?
An excellent way to answer this question is by surveying some of your audience members within your ideal market.
For instance, if your target customer is new mothers, think about the day-to-day challenges of new mothers and how can your product or service help.
Then you can market your brand and products or services only to these new mothers, who are most likely genuinely interested in them.
Figure out Your Target Market Before You Focus on Your Product
Below is an infographic with questions to help you figure out your market. These questions can give insight into what kind of product can be helpful for your target market.
Answers to these questions will help you develop a solid marketing strategy to reach your customers on Instagram, LinkedIn or where ever.
Be sure to figure out your target market before you focus on your product or service.
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Demographic
Who is most likely to use your product or service, and who is not? Do you know what demographic or target consumer to attract and what specific demographic to avoid?
Needs
Who are your current customers, and why do they buy from you? What requirements does your product or service fulfil in the life of your customers?
Hangout
Where does your potential audience hang out online? Any website or blogs attracting the target audience or lookalike audience you can use for advertising?
If you can’t see a straightforward way to reach your market efficiently online, it isn’t the right market for you! Click To Tweet
Data
Which of your existing customers bring in the most business? How do you gather marketing data from your customers?
Competitors
Who are your competitors targeting, and who are their current customers? What’s their market positioning? How about their pricing?
Growth
Do you see enough potential customers within your target audience to start a brand new business? Will they come back repeatedly to purchase?
Conclusion
In conclusion, knowing your customers’ needs will help you create high-quality content that fits their needs.
Don’t go after the same market but dig deeper to find a niche market. If you can’t see a straightforward way to reach this market efficiently online, that isn’t the market for you.
Now over to you! Have you determined your target market before focusing on your product or service? Need help? Schedule a marketing consultation session now!
So, don’t try to appeal to everyone, especially on social media. It doesn’t make sense to try to make your product or service appeal to everyone.
Your time, energy and money are better invested in your target customer.
The more in-depth your knowledge of your target customer, the more you can narrow your focus to get your marketing message out to clients.
The more precision you can put into your advertising, especially on social media.
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