Target audience: how to hit the bullseye with your marketing

You wouldn’t try and sell a diesel car to David Attenborough. You wouldn’t tell a vegan that they need to try halloumi. You wouldn’t invite your Dad round to watch Fifty Shades Freed. Why? Because they just aren’t the right audience.

Targeting the right audience is crucial for businesses when it comes to marketing their product or service, but they might not always have the right tools or expertise to do the groundwork. They might be so busy keeping different parts of the business moving that they don’t have time to examine their market, the role they play within it, and the person for whom their product will truly resonate.

If they were to stop and assess these things, they’d find it so much easier to start a conversation with customers, gain leads and expand their reach – they may even unlock the potential within a target audience they never knew they had.

Unfortunately, in today’s ultra-competitive landscape, businesses can’t afford to continue marketing to the wrong audiences. They need to learn where to aim so that they can hit a bullseye with their marketing.

First things first, what is a target audience?

The target audience is more than just the group of people you are trying to sell attract. They are the product of a variety of factors, whether that’s their location, age, income, the job they have or their gender.

Your target audience could be 40-50-year-old male construction workers, millennial health and fitness freaks or aspiring entrepreneurs in the city. So… how can you go about targeting the right audience?

Find the right demographic

Businesses aren’t run by robots – you need to be thinking about the person who will be reading your social media posts and blog content or engaging with your website. What are their hobbies? Their interests? How much do they earn, how old are they, and where do they live? By analysing social media and using digital marketing tools such as Google Analytics, you can see where existing leads are coming from and start building a persona for your target demographic.

Once you’ve built the who, you can start drilling down into the how. What are they reading online? What social media platforms do they use? Who do they follow on Twitter? And then the big question all of these lead to What makes them stop scrolling and click through to find out more?

Looking for your target audience? Think outside the box

It’s easy to get so close to your product and service that you simply can’t see the bigger picture, and blindly carrying on pitching the same people you think will get the best use of your product. But there could be a massive target market opportunity you are missing under your nose.

Take another look at your product or service – what pain points does it address, and could these be applied to other audiences beyond the ones you are addressing?

Look for common traits between past leads. If you succeed with people who often like football, for instance, you could put together a campaign outlining why your business always ‘hits the back of the net’, with an image of your products in a 4-4-2 formation. That way, you are so much more likely to strike a chord with your target audience.

Use marketing to engage with your audience

Marketing is a two-way street. Don’t just put a post out every few days – instead, try to create meaningful conversations across several channels (email, social media and so on). Maybe you could create a poll or run a survey about new technologies on LinkedIn, or host a webinar with industry experts featuring a live Q&A – whatever gets people talking and seeing you as a thought leader in your field.

The more you engage with your audience, the more you can find out who your message is really resonating with, helping you identify the audience you should be addressing. Which reminds us…

Always measure the impact your marketing is having

Are you getting more hits on your website, but no new customers? Perhaps you’ve received less engagement on social media than usual, or are seeing more people unsubscribing from the company newsletter. If you’re gaining traction but not securing new customers, that’s a sign that you are in fact targeting the wrong audience (or pitching your product wrong, a subject we will take a closer look at in the near future).

This is where Nutcracker really excels – we don’t just push one campaign out into the world and move on. Instead, we analyse what’s working, how to refine it and what (if anything) could be done differently, maximising our clients’ chances of success.

By making it all about your target audience – their wants, needs, hobbies, fears and motivations – we can create a cohesive marketing plan that will generate leads for your business.

We understand that hitting a bullseye with your marketing takes time. Let us take aim so that you can focus on creating the best products and services in your chosen field.

Want to identify your target audience and start getting a solid return on your marketing investment? Get in touch for a chat today at hello@nutcrackeragency.com.