Targeting an audience is key. It can be quite the process while the goal might seem simple. Identify who they are and gain clarity on consumers’ wants and needs, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Connection, authenticity, and consistency are a few of the backbones to building the audience that’s right for you. To explain further, let’s take a look at a few powerful and recommended tips that are perfect for pinpointing your target audience.
1. Profile Your Audience
When purchasing a gift for a friend who you know enjoys tabletop games and trading cards, you wouldn’t buy them rock-climbing gear when their interest in rock-climbing has never been mentioned before. This approach towards finding your target audience shouldn’t be any different. Having an idea on how to benefit someone else with the aid of collected data on that person is considered profiling. This can be and should be done with a group of people as well, maintaining the understanding of preferences as well as wants vs needs.
Profiling helps with demonstrating sincerity, exploring connection, and building thoughtfulness as you depict your target audience. Altogether it narrows down on “who” through the idea of answering wishes, desires, and needs. Using text message marketing may already be an everyday habit with friends and family for direct, genuine, and instant engagement, but here are a few other intentional ways to get started on profiling your audience.
-
Ask questions on Reddit
-
Make phone calls
-
Engage at events
2. Have a Purpose
Having a purpose makes you identifiable through the power of passion. One thing to remember, your purpose is not a scripted elevator speech you create in hopes of increasing sales. It won’t be long before someone senses inauthenticity, which could leave a scar on your brand’s ability to be trusted.
Your purpose offers an introduction; a first impression of something way bigger, particularly bigger than you and your needs because through your service, you find fulfillment. Here, an opportunity is presented through voicing and proving what drives you everyday to become fulfilled in this way.
With your purpose you will find yourself either joining a community already established in their practices and habits, or you may find yourself giving a voice to those who had no idea how to come together until you came along, or somehow, possibly both.
No matter which way you go, this new home you’ve come across will only accept and believe your purpose if they feel your authenticity is rooted deeply in your actions. From that alone, it is plain to see someone as trustworthy, committed, and persistent simply because it goes beyond consumerism and instead attempts to give birth to and/or expand the resources of a community out of pure resonance.
3. Find a Micro Niche
In a world of infinite possibilities, it is easy to have the desire to find the biggest target audience, but that is where anyone looking for their audience falls short. In today’s digital era, the best thing any brand can do in a world full of noise, hustle, and bustle, is to zero in on those who truly matter; those who are currently present with you and who you can consider your tribe no matter the number of people.
Ironically, this is the best way to discover who you wish to target as your audience, their wants vs. needs, a connection with them, and an overall accountability. Whether it may be with your effort or honesty and execution, it has to be taken seriously and personally, leading to the awareness of what it looks like to have an audience to begin with.
Finding a micro-niche is like finding a family who sees clearly who you are, and they believe in what it is you do whole-heartedly. A micro audience focuses on a specific topic, activity, or need within this small-trust-world. Peer to peer activity creates change from within your circle ,then begins to multiply outward. In other words, your audience enhances the voice you’ve discovered within yourself and influences the will of others who then resonate strongly enough with your passion and purpose, only to naturally influence others around them.
A Target Audience is more than an audience, it’s a family
In today’s world, chances are the culture which defines you will assist in targeting an everlasting audience. Take the time to strive for authentic engagement. Discover what is truly working and who is genuinely interested through personable connection.
