Target Audience: How to Define your Target Audience in 5 Simple Steps

What is a Target Audience?

  1. The customers looking for solutions to a problem that you can solve
  2. The customers most likely buy from you

Why is Defining a Target Audience Important?

If your Target Audience is not clearly defined, you may end up missing the most valuable group of potential clients for your business. It is better to have a smaller defined group that you know is more likely to buy your product or service so you can fine tune and tailor your message to them rather than trying to include every possible option making your messaging undefined and difficult to manage or focus. The pray and spray messaging approach can be costly for any business. It becomes much more affordable, efficient and useful when you know who you need to focus your company message on.

Focus on Business Growth

Knowing who you are talking to both for your marketing efforts and your website design is an important step. When you know who your target audience is, it is easier to create better products and services and provide the right customer experience for them.

Tip:

You can define sub Target Audience groups in addition to your primary group, but step one is to identify your main group – you can come back and build additional target groups later. We will define the customer needs in our next article, so for this exercise, focus on the group most likely to buy from a high level.

Target Audience Checklist Tools

  1. Is your Business B2B or B2C?
  2. Go to the relevant Check List
Your Target Audience Check List – B2C
  1. How old are they?
  2. Are they mostly male or female?
  3. Where do they live?
  4. How much do they earn?
  5. What is their profession?
  6. What are their lifestyle and interests?
Your Target Audience Check List – B2B
  1. Are your customers solo, small or large businesses?
  2. What types of industry or business are they?
  3. Who are your top 3 target businesses?
  4. Where are they geographically?
To help you answer these questions well, consider your core products and services and identify who is most likely to use them.

Next Steps

Learn how to complete the Target Audience section on your Website Business Plan inside the course.

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