8 Ways to Find Your Target Audience to Perform Better Marketing

If you’re the owner of an independent marketing firm, it can be hard to find your target audience in the sea of clients vying for your attention. However, with the right strategy, finding them can be easier than you think. Here are eight ways to find your target audience so that you can market better to them and get more business.

1) Keyword Research

Keyword research is one of those tasks that can be as fun as it is tedious. Start with a keyword like online marketing tools and dig through Google Keyword Planner’s suggestions. You’ll find Google gives you suggestions based on search volume, user location, time of year, etc. Add all your suggested keywords into an editorial calendar with their intended posting dates. Be sure to keep a running list of new ideas for future content so you don’t run out! Create a post on your site by clicking on Post Now from your Editorial Calendar and popping in some dummy text. (This will make sure any images are linked correctly.) Run it through your marketing automation tool for quick and easy scheduling.

2) Competitor Analysis

Compare what you know about your intended audience based on search intent data and customer demographics to your competitors, who can give you insights into how people behave when looking for similar products or services. Focus on sites with similar traffic levels. The idea here is to understand who is targeting your intended audience and how they’re doing it since that will tell you what will work for you and what won’t. Additionally, try to find out if there are any holes in your competitors’ approach by trying to identify audiences they might be leaving out and ways that they could improve their marketing efforts (by, say, adding a product feature). Just make sure not to try to copy their messaging or image too closely; unique content with careful attention paid to search intent is key.

3) Facebook Advertising

When we talk about digital marketing, social media is a huge part of it. With more than a billion active users every day, Facebook is one of your best bets for reaching a large audience and advertising with them effectively. Once you’ve created your ad account on Facebook, you can decide which audience you want to target by filtering out things like age, gender, location, and interests. Once your targeted audience is decided upon, you can then use your paid ad budget to reach those people in their newsfeeds and hopefully get some new customers in return! This works especially well if your target market uses Facebook daily.

4) Know What You Are Selling

Before you can find out who wants to buy your product, you need to know what it is you are selling. When starting a business, one of your first jobs is knowing precisely what you are trying to sell. One of the many challenges of being an entrepreneur is that once you take on all of these responsibilities, there is no one else who will know all of your details like you do. That’s why it’s so important that as soon as possible, if not right at startup, any potential entrepreneur knows exactly what they have in mind and how they plan on bringing their product or service into reality.

5) Promotions Are Key to Sales

If you’re struggling with sales, it might be due to your target audience’s interests. Take a look at how you can adjust your promotions for greater success. If most of your target market is young males, but you’re promoting an app geared toward middle-aged women and families, then you need to shift your marketing strategy. In addition, those in charge of a company’s marketing strategy must know who their audience is and what that audience cares about so they can use proper messaging and ads for effective delivery.

6) Get Out and Meet People

While finding your target audience online is easier than ever before, it’s still difficult to develop a deep understanding of who they are. While surveying and survey data are useful, you might be surprised at how much information you can glean from simply talking with your customers. The next time you have a business meeting or an event that allows for networking, take time to meet with some of your potential customers face-to-face. You might get valuable insights about what type of people your business will attract and what content will resonate most effectively with them. This information can help you develop better marketing strategies that align more closely with what people want from your brand.

7) Knowing your audience is valuable but takes time

If you already have a business and you’re looking for new ways to improve it, take some time right now and ask yourself what your target audience is. Think hard about it, because when it comes down to marketing your products or services in a way that’s going to give you results, knowing who your audience is (and how they behave) will be key. If you’re not sure who makes up your target market, think about who would pay for what you have. For example, if you are selling t-shirts with funny quotes on them, make sure that people of all ages can relate otherwise don’t bother doing any marketing at all! You won’t see any success if everyone in your family isn’t buying them.

8) Affiliate Programs Work Wonders if Done Right

The quickest and most reliable way to find your target audience is through an affiliate program. If you’re trying to market a product or service online, affiliate marketing is one of your best bets for finding new customers without doing much legwork. Affiliate programs allow you to place ads on other people’s websites, creating revenue when users click through those ads and make purchases. If you have a lot of experience promoting products as an affiliate, it’s easy enough for you to use that expertise in your own business with a few tweaks here and there.

Final Thought

Think of your target audience like a man looking through a rifle sight. You want to define as closely as possible who you’re aiming at so that you don’t end up shooting all over and hitting no one. Surveying surveys will help you get a better picture of what your ideal customer looks like, but there are other ways too: Keep an eye on news stories and trends they may point towards where your customers are moving. Looking at how competitors are marketing their products to their target market may be a good indicator of where yours is going next.