You’re finally living your dream with your own business but you feel like you could attract more business thanwhat you already have. What can be done to attract your audience? Wait. Who is your audience? And for that matter, what is a target audience?
Your target audience is the image of your common customer. Think about your business and who it appeals most to.If you sell trendy skate shoes then your audience probably isn’t elderly men from Laredo, Texas. Think about who your customers might be and what demographics they belong to. These groups can be narrowed down to age, gender, location, income, and even employment. Understanding your target audience helps you focus on your customers’ wants and needs without wasting time trying to attract a demographic that will never have interest in buying from you. It can be hard to figure out who your target audience might be but these are some helpful ways for you to identify your patrons.
If you own a brick and mortar store then all you have to do is take note of who comes in through your glass doors. If you notice younger women perusing your merchandise then that’s an easy start to clarifying your target audience. If you don’t have a store and sell online, you can still observe your customers through their profiles.Oftentimes a profile is required on retail sites and by simply looking at names you can create a basis of who your target audience is. If you would like to further research your customers then check on their profile and see what other products they gave reviews for or have purchased before and you can begin to see patterns in their purchases.
You can easily identify your target audience by having them find you. By creating a social media profile or page for your business you are not only advertising your business online, you are also tracking your audience. People love to express themselves on social media and will follow or like businesses they shop often from. This will allow you to see who your customers are in full detail as all their information is just a click away. You don’t even have to really do a lot of searching as their profile pictures tell you almost everything you need to know about the person that helps your business expand. If you’re having issues pinpointing your target audience’s general location then you can use Facebook Insight that will show you the general location of your followers and their interests.Taking note of who likes and follows your business online will greatly help you understand your target audience and it doesn’t require much work for you to do.
Sometimes the target audience has already been identified for you by a competitor. If you are selling clothes then look at how companies like Macy’s or JC Penney advertise their products.Notice what products are on the front page of their website, what categories are shown over the others, or which gender is favored. There’s a reason why women’s clothing is always on top of men’s clothing. These companies know their customers very well and they know how to pique their interests. Using your competitors’ knowledge makes it easier for you to appeal to the same audience or even attract some of their customers with something they might be missing.If they don’t offer something that you know is in the same interest of your target audience, then offer that product and you’ll begin to notice your competitor’s customers preferring your business because it understands them better. Although you might be extremely business savvy, you can’t beat the years of experience that your competitors already have but you can use their experience to your advantage.
As you research your target audience online, you might notice most of the websites you visit will flash messages at you about accepting cookies. These cookies are some of the best trackers you could hope for as a business owner. Cookies take down the data of anybody visiting a website and can see their search and browser history. It’s why when you look up a product on your phone, you’ll start noticing ads for that product on other websites despite it not having to do anything with what you were originally looking up. You can use these cookies to help you clearly identify your target audience through Google Analytics. Google Analytics utilizes cookies to track the people who have visited your website and organizes their interests, gender, age, and any other information the cookies could gather and parents this information to you. Google Analytics can be a very useful tool that will detail the demographics of your customers allowing you to get the best information on what your products best suit your customers’ wants and needs.