Let me clarify two buzzwords that drive me bananas:
- Target market
- Target audience
I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve treated them the same and the results don’t lie.
Thousands of dollars spent, hundreds of hours wasted and an infestation of visitors bouncing from my site.
But I can’t complain…
I caused this.
Your target audience isn’t “anyone who’s interested” in your product, service or content. They are specific segments within your target market.
They aren’t the same and if you’re treating them synonymously, then you’re playing a dangerous game.
Power Reviews found that 79% of online shoppers spend 50% of their shopping time researching products.
This means you need to know what your customers are looking for, where they’re searching and how you can integrate yourself as a part of their buyer’s journey.
Your marketing strategy should communicate unique messages to specific audiences that ultimately solve the ‘same’ problem.
Identifying the right target audiences has increased my conversion rate exponentially and I’m going to show you exactly how you can source the right audiences within a crowded target market.
Here’s what we’ll cover:
- Who your buyers are (demographics).
- Why they buy (psychographics).
- How to hack your way into their buying cycle (audience hacker 101).
Identifying your target market or niche is the single most important decision you can make as an entrepreneur. Target marketing isn’t just for new start-ups, but it is a key ingredient to scaling your business.
Let’s jump into the mindset of ‘audience hacking’ and look at the best ways to identify a target market and extract targeted audiences within it.
You Can’t Find Audiences if Your Target Market is Wrong
What is a target market?
By definition it is a group of consumers whom a product or service is directed towards.
On the other end, a target audience (market segment) is a specific group of people within a target market that a marketing campaign is aimed towards.
For example, a company who sells concert tickets may define their target market as music lovers. The obvious approach to selling Taylor Swift tickets may be to target female teens.
Media Smarts shows that 98% of the time, children have an influence on family entertainment choices, trips and excursions. As a result, marketing to teens has exploded over the past two decades.
Other target audience examples may include parents or grandparents with children in their teenage years. After all, most 13-year-old girls can’t afford $200 tickets.
Business owners: think laterally with target audiences for greater ROI. #Business #Marketing Click To TweetThis is what target marketing is all about. You create highly effective messages aimed to specific market segments for higher conversion and lower ad spend.
The easiest place to start defining your target market is to begin with your customers. Analyzing who your current customers are will help break down the two key elements to target market analysis:
- Demographics
- Psychographics
If you don’t have customers yet, we’ll look into reverse engineering who your competitors’ target markets are.
Identifying Demographics – The “Who”
Demographics are a powerful source to determine ‘who’ your customers are. Some key variables to consider are:
- Income
- Gender
- Age group
- Education
- Occupation
- Location
- Ethnicity
- Family size
Rather than trying to nail all characteristics, start with a primary variable and extend outwards to secondary and tertiary variables.
A great place to start is by analyzing your competitors using Facebook’s Audience Insights.
Audience Insights give you a wealth of knowledge on virtually any target market.
Assuming you’re in a place where you have no idea who your target market is, you can enter the name of a mega competitor in the “interests section”.
Let’s say you’re a mom blogger and you’ve been targeting “moms” as a broad group.
We’ll use Scary Mommy as our example of interest for your ‘ideal’ audience:
After you select your audience, you’ll get a glimpse of the gender and age group that resonate with this brand.
If you dig a little deeper, you’ll find more information on their relationship status, education level, job title and lifestyle.
Facebook Audience Insights provides a plethora of relevant data. You can spend hours using this free tool to identify key demographics from your competitors who’ve already ‘made it’.
Try Facebook's Audience Insights to find your ideal target market #marketing #leadgen Click To TweetGeographic data is not to be neglected.
You can get a glimpse into locational segments by countries, cities and languages.
With this data, you can narrow a target audience using specific age groups, precise locations (as specific as zip codes), and gender.
Labelling women with children as mothers won’t be effective.
You’ll notice that women between the ages 18-24 will show different lifestyles than those who are 35-44.
Makes sense though, right?
People in different age groups are in different life stages. My mother and my wife (both mothers) are completely different, yet they’re both moms.
They might be interested in grocery delivery, but my mother would have a stronger affinity to saving money and my wife would be more attracted to saving time.
Target Marketing for Local Businesses (Brick and Mortar)
Local markets are a little tougher using this data since brick and mortar Facebook pages usually aren’t that large.
Although you may not be able to use a branded competitor, you can still use a generic phrase. Chiropractors for example are likely to target people with back pain.
No one ‘likes’ back pain, but they may have mentioned it somewhere along their Facebook timeline or profile.
They’re now a part of Facebook’s Audience Insights.
Narrow it down to your locale and you’ll find some information on the demographics of your potential target market.
Choosing a Primary Variable
Facebook is a great way to get information on people who’ve mentioned something in their profile or timeline, but it’s not a guaranteed way to find a profitable audience.
In the medical field, you might be interested in location first, occupation second (benefits packages) and household income last.
Mom bloggers might be interested in family size, age and lifestyle.
When choosing a primary variable for your target market, you want to think of what drives their purchasing decisions.
Don’t get too tied up in Facebook’s stats. You should always look to other industry professionals and compare statistical research.
For example, if age is a primary variable, you’ll want to start thinking about where your audiences live.
Pewinternet.org shows that 90% of young adults (18-29) and 77% of adults (30-49) are most likely to use social media.
This kind of data will play a role in where you advertise and how you reach your market.
Demographics profile “who” your buyers are.
By understanding the core characteristics of a demographic, you’ll have a solid understanding of where they spend their time and channels you can use to reach them.
Defining Psychographic Characteristics – The “Why”
Psychographics is the study of personality, values, opinions, attitudes, interests and lifestyles.
In short, psychographics answer “why” a demographic buys.
That’s great and all, but how does that apply to our marketing efforts?
Creating messages that speak the language your audience values and resonates with drives click through rates above and beyond generic advertisements.
For example, Survey Monkey found that 71% of adults are trying to eat healthier at restaurants than they did two years ago. Approximately 50% of survey respondents showed improvement in living a healthier lifestyle.
Health consciousness is no longer a trend, but it’s a value that has been ingrained at the core of people’s lifestyles.
Rather than advertising $0.50 hotdogs and $1.00 breakfast meals, Ikea continually posts messages on healthy living.
They nail the message by emphasizing socially responsible ways of sourcing fish.
But they won’t stop there.
They integrate this value beyond their restaurant and into their products.
This Facebook post linked to their “new products” page.
Don’t Forget About Culture – Ikea and Starbucks Haven’t
One component of psychographics that gets overlooked is culture. Cultural beliefs are closely related to demographics (ex. geography).
They represent a group’s attitudes and values deeply rooted in them.
In 2012, Ikea used the same catalogue image in the Americas and Saudi Arabia. But one key element was missing. Can you pinpoint it?
Where’s mom?
Women’s rights in Saudi Arabia are limited in comparison to its neighboring countries. Although there have been significant movements over the last decade, Saudi Arabia ranked 127th out of 136 countries for gender parity.
Starbucks did the same when opening its coffee shops in Saudi. Rather than using a woman with a crown in their logo, they just used the crown.
As you can imagine, the Americas gave them heck about this. I don’t necessarily agree with the approach, but I can understand their choices from their market research.
Don't forget about culture. It's crucial for world target markets. #Marketing Click To TweetAsk your Target Market Questions
Facial expressions, tone and body language often speak louder than words. Although you may not have the capacity to meet every customer in person, phone calls and surveys might be the next best thing.
Treat it like a first date.
Keep the interview casual and try to get a better understanding of who they are, what their challenges are, what makes them tick, what motivates them and their short and long term goals.
Don’t ask them about their deepest fears or prying questions that will end your relationship in an awkward silence.
This isn’t a job interview. They’re helping you identify valuable insights on why they chose your product over hundreds of other competitors.
Facebook Audience Insights For Deeper Segmentation
Facebook’s Audience Insights has more than demographic information.
They give you data on behaviors, affinity to like other brands and categorical interests according to your targeting.
When analyzing Harley Davidson, you can see that men who are interested in the motorcycle and are grandparents have a strong affinity to other brands like Chopper Exchange (a classified site for American motorcycles) and the National Rifle Association.
Looking at Facebook’s top categories, you can see music preferences and gauge their sense of humor.
But remember:
Use this data with a grain of salt.
Not all men who are grandparents and have shown interest in Harley Davidson think Larry the Cable Guy is funny.
People are unique with different preferences. There is no one trick pony with segmenting your target audiences.
Pay Attention – Words are Powerful
There isn’t any statistical data behind what people say in forums. But let’s think about this for a second.
To post on a forum, you need to…
- make an account.
- confirm your email address.
- write a detailed question hoping someone will answer it.
People who post on forums are either looking for community, promoting their own brand or looking for answers.
A realtor might run a Google search like this:
In a glance, you’ll get an idea of pain points they might want to address through content marketing.
From a 3-liner, we can dissect valuable information from a first time home buyer (NeilB4Zod).
- Male
- Recently graduated from college
- Works a corporate job
- Salaried at about $65,000
- Is interested in buying his first home
He knows that the value of homes are rising (likely a fear) and isn’t sure if he should save or invest.
The fact that he’s thinking of investing shows that he understands that real estate is an investment which opens up a whole new can of worms.
He doesn’t want to lose money on his investment.
You can take this data and start doing a little more digging to see if others fit this profile.
Other, more qualified people have done the work for you. You just need to find the data and apply it to your audiences.
By using statistically driven data, you will be able to better profile your ideal customer and target very specific messages to fulfill their needs.
And that’s exactly what Target Corporation did when they found out a teen girl was pregnant before her father knew.
How Well Do You Know Your Target Market?
When you’re in the industry for so long, what seems obvious to you might not be as obvious to your prospective customers.
By extracting hyper-targeted audiences within your target market, you’ll be able to create effective messages that address pain points, integrate with audience values and save precious advertising dollars.
Ready to take action?
Download your free copy of my eBook Scale:Target Audiences that Buy. In this book, you’ll see the critical mistakes that almost killed my business and how I segmented profitable audiences to 10X my profits.
Take a second and let me know your thoughts:
- Have you been targeting a broad market?
- Do you have any other tips for finding niche specific audiences?
I’d love to hear from you.
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