The quicker you can figure out who your target audience is, the quicker you can grab potential customers. As the owner of a small business, you should be aware of who your target audience is in order to craft your marketing strategy around it.
According to Statista, 97% of businesses use content marketing as their strategy. Here are four types of target audience every small business owner must be in the know of to construct their strategy.
What Is a Target Audience? How Does It Differ for Small Businesses?
The target audience is a category of people that any business wants to pinpoint with their marketing. These types of audiences differ for each type of business. Small businesses have to be extremely specific in identifying their demographic.
Most of the target audiences are individual prospects or groups with specific problems. Their range is on a smaller scale than big businesses, which are driven towards a substantial target.
Types of Target Audience for Small Businesses
If there is one winning story to success, it is identifying your target audience and becoming the best solution to their problems. When talking about small businesses, we can generally split the target audiences into 4 types. These audiences are either decision-makers or influencers.
1. Purchase Intent
This type of target audience refers to separating people based on their intention to purchase a particular item. It aids in getting to know what customers are on the lookout for, and why they are in need of a particular product.
Their pain points are clearly visible through this. With the understanding gained, you can easily cater to their needs and market in a more personalized way. Without beating around the bush, you can offer tailored campaigns to this type of target audience.
For example, if your small-scale business is regarding electronic goods and there are people with the intention of buying a new mobile phone, you can market to them by surrounding them with advertisements about the offers they can avail when purchasing from your store.
2. Existing Customers
Remembering the evergreen statement here: Old is Gold. Rather than searching for new customers, give equal importance to your existing customers. This is one of the most important types of target audience. Retaining your old customers is much more cost-effective.
The customers who have been loyal to you will not just continue to boost your sales but also generate new potential revenue by referring, as well as recommending your business. You can keep your existing customers intact with offers, premium services, and upgrades that make them feel valued by you.
3. Particular Interests
Among the types of target audience, the third is those with specific interests. This refers to you dividing your target audience on the basis of things like their hobbies, interests, entertainment, and media preferences. This can aid you in uncovering their behaviors and their driving force in buying.
Using this knowledge you can connect with them on a ground level and secure their trust. Their buying preferences can be unearthed and used to your advantage. For example, if your target audience is big on going on vacations, marketing strategies like messages or offers could be based on that.
4. Sub-Divisions
Commonly known as subcultures, this groups your audience based on their shared experiences. An apt example would be people who identify with listening to the same genre of music.
When you advertise, you have to keep this in mind to create content for specific subcultures. Subcultures help you reach target audiences at a larger level. For example, if your business is based on textiles, you have to market to subcultures based on the trend of clothes each division wears from vintage to chic clothing.
How Do You Identify Your Target Audience?
A business is useless if it doesn’t connect with the right audience. Coming up with the right audience needs immense research. Here are some useful steps on how to identify your target audience.
1. Look at Your Present Customers
The most crucial direction to look at is to focus on your existing customers. By determining what is still popular and working with them, you can have a base idea about who is likely to buy from you.
You can survey your existing customers based on their behavioral traits, demographics, and experiences, and can directly approach them on your website, social media, or email.
2. Breakdown Your Website Traffic
Break down the traffic that your website fetches and get actual factual data. Secure data about your visitors with regard to their age, job, gender, location, social media preference, interests, and pain points.
3. Go Big on Social Media
Social media sites are the major platforms to gain your target audience nowadays. Different social media sites can open you up to different users.
By analyzing their activity on social media, you can get a clear picture of who your target audience is and what gravitates them. You can use this data in favor of your business, and attract attention using content that your customers want to see.
4. Scrutinize Your Competitor
Watching how your competitors are performing is not a sin. It can keep you on the lookout and keep you posted on the recent trends in the market. You can look into what platforms they use to pull in customers, how they market, and who their target audience types are.
Your audience will evolve, so will the market, and so should you. Be ready to welcome change and constantly alter your marketing strategies based on the evolving target audience.
While concentrating on just the set of people who are your potential customers, don’t leave out knowing who will never be. Figuring out who need not fit into your pinpointed list is also equally as important.
Frequently Asked Questions:
What is the benefit of identifying a target audience?
By identifying target audiences, you can create more impactful marketing strategies that deliver a tailored message to potential customers. By shifting your focus exclusively to your target audience, you do not have to waste your time on the rest.
What is a B2B business?
This is a business term defining business occurring between one business and another. It can range from services to product exchange, or information trading. In simple terms, it can also be said as companies sell to other companies instead of individual customers.
What is B2C business?
With the expansion of business to consumer, this type of business refers to companies selling to individual prospects. It includes all the common retailer sales that we go through every single day. This term applies to both in-person and online businesses.
Wrapping Up
If your customers speak digital, you have to speak digital, too. Content is the most powerful tool through which you can retain and grab potential customers. With a complete understanding of the types of target audiences, go on and build your marketing strategies around it for a big hit.
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