Target Audience Identification: 8 Practical Steps for Brands

To successfully promote your brand and increase sales by posting content at the best time by using social media scheduler, it is crucial to ensure that you deliver the right content to the right person at the right time. The very foundation of your marketing strategy is identifying target audiences that are right for your products and services. It includes understanding who your target customer are, who are your major competitors or rivals, and the core issues that your competitors cannot solve, which you can do with your products.

Let’s first understand what exactly is the target audience.

What is the target audience?

In order to create content that resonates with people, you should know who your target audience is and who’s not. Your definition of the target audience should comprise the product/service you offer, demographic data about your targeted consumers, and your content’s mission.

A simple target audience identification example could look like this once you’re finished analyzing your audience:

“[Your brand name] curates content to help and inform [targeted demographic] so they can [take this action] in a better manner.”

Defining target audience parameters is important to know where to concentrate your sales and marketing efforts. It will help you understand who your customers are and what they need from a business like yours. It can include the following:

• Which social media sites do they use the most?
• How do they like to communicate with their family and friends?
• Their age range, gender, hobbies, interests, location, job designation, etc.
• Know their behavior, attitude, lifestyle, personality, etc. 
• Their issues are solved by your products or services.

Now, let’s see the tactics that you can use to identify your target audience.

Who are the target audiences?

A target audience is a specific group of people who are most likely to be interested in your products or services. They share common characteristics such as demographics (age, gender, income level), interests, behaviors, and purchasing habits.

For example, if you sell high-end fitness gear, your target audience might include health-conscious individuals aged 25-45 who are interested in premium workout equipment. The more clearly you define your audience, the more effectively you can tailor your messaging, products, and marketing strategies.

Now, let’s go through the eight steps to find your target audience.

How to find your target audience? 

Understanding your target audience is the foundation of any successful business or marketing strategy. If you’re trying to reach “everyone,” you’re likely reaching no one effectively. Identifying your ideal audience helps you tailor your messaging, improve engagement, and drive sales.

But where do you start? Now, we’ll walk you through 8 essential steps to find your target audience. Whether you’re a startup, a small business, or an established brand looking to refine your approach, these steps will help you connect with the right people and maximize your impact. Let’s jump in!

8 ways to find out your brand’s target audience

1. Create an audience persona

A buyer persona requires you to document the real motivations and interests that affect your target customers. By knowing them, you’ll be able to identify your target audience better when required. It is the first step to visualize your target audience. When you develop the picture of an individual, you can properly tailor your message to them. 

When you follow this process while creating campaigns, people will feel like you are speaking to them directly and not to a mass audience.

A great audience persona covers these details:

• Who
• What
• When
• Where
• Why

Specific details are necessary for every aspect. When possible, include things like Gender, Personality, Family life, Job title, Job function, Employer, Location, Income, Needs, Pain points, and Challenges.

This process doesn’t have to be robust – it just serves as a tool to assist you in crafting the right message for your specific audience. Jot down the who, what, etc of your marketing audience. From a stock image website, grab a picture of the images of the target audience you are targeting. Having a vision of who you’re writing about can help you speak through your content as if you’re talking to them directly. If you are looking for a buyer persona generator, Xtensio is a great tool to try out. You can also try out some target audience generators for free.

See the best social media marketing tips here!

2. Analyze your current customers

Take time to analyze your customer base by examining the attributes of your best current customers and compile that list into at least one profile based on common characteristics. Some successful statistics include those with the greatest deal sizes, the maximum retention, and the best clients to work with.

Engage Your marketing audience with this free social media analytics report template.

If possible, break down the customers into multiple segments. Find the ones that provide the top gross revenue in return for the least amount of work. Having an updated GMB profile will help you find yourself. Also, find consumers who may not be the most profitable but consistent and support your regular operations. Knowing who you’re dealing with right now allows you to expand on and reach out to more of your potential audience.

3. Consider benefits, not features

The best way to find out which customers are to target is to identify who has a requirement or interest in your product or service and then start narrowing it down from there. Begin by defining all the various features and attributes of your product, then think about who will benefit from those features. When you start to comprehend the advantages of your product, you will begin to understand who will appreciate those features.

Think of yourself as the solution to someone’s problem. Whose problem are you the solution for? This helps you visualize your ideal customer and their specific needs. Who has the problem, and what is your solution? Brainstorm to build your target audience persona and start thinking and visualizing things from their point of view. This will help you in crafting the perfect marketing message. As the pain points of your potential audience will be addressed, it will immediately convert them from readers to paying consumers. 

4. Don’t run on a hunch

As a business, one of the worst things you can do is assume that you thoroughly understand your customers. This is because a particular term might mean different to different people. For example, if you are in the fitness industry, you must understand how your primary audience perceives the term ‘health’. 

Compare the assessment of your point of sale and your market research. Identify the variations between what your primary research has shown and your original expectations about your target audience. You may have thought that your customers will use your product for a particular purpose. However, the product surveys or interviews might reveal a different motivation for the customers. If your customers claim they want something that is in contrast with your original thoughts, go with what your customers say rather than sticking to a flawed assumption.

5. Look at your social media analytics

Every social site will provide you with something that will be useful in knowing about your social media target audience. This is why, along with weighing down your options amongst social networking sites, it is also crucial to first understand the pros and cons of social media. Your facebook target audience can be found with the platform’s inbuilt insights. Facebook offers every page owner a powerful collection of insights (analysis tools to find the target audience) that are free to use whenever you want. From here, you can easily classify the demographics of your most active users and identify the interests they share in common.

Twitter also has an outstanding follower dashboard that you can use if you sign up for a Twitter advertising account. This dashboard shows you what your followers are interested in, explicitly mentioning popular trends and other Twitter accounts that your followers have in common.

6. Scope out the competition

It is essential to inspect out the companies that offer goods that are close to yours. Their tactics will provide further insights into the primary audience you’re trying to target. You need to focus not only on big companies but also on the newcomers. Make a list of all your competitors and analyze their marketing habits. Discover their audience and their gaps, as you’ll want to target the audience that others have missed.

Likewise, if you want to lure their current customers away, start thinking about how you can convince those customers to turn to your product. Closely observe their successes and learn what they did differently to attract customers. Similarly, also note their failures and avoid repeating them. Investigate how your rivals don’t meet the needs of their target clients, monitor industry trends that affect consumer behavior, and write down how your business does it differently.

Here are some of the best competitor analysis tools!

7. Create a Market Positioning Map

Alex McCormick of Checklate says, “The best way to determine the target market for your website is to use a market research approach known as market mapping. This is a basic diagram that helps you to recognize gaps in the market or sector in which your product/service/website operates.” follow the below steps for conducting this analysis:

• Draw a Y and an X-axis on a page with the two overlaps in the middle to give you four separate sections.
• Label one axis with age and another with income level.
• Place all your rivals on this map based on their customer base.

When you’ve done mapping all of your rivals, search for where there are wide empty spaces on the map. This is where there is a gap in the market. Where there are a number of brands grouped together, it shows that the market is oversaturated. This makes it easy for you to identify your niche, and target clients on its basis. For a successful brainstorming, use the mind mapping technique as it is highly effective and you can easily create a mind map with a mind map maker to organize your thoughts and ideas.

Once you have a clear understanding of your market positioning, it’s time to explore the various types of marketing that can help you promote your brand effectively. Check out our blog on [Types of Marketing: Promote Your Brand for Business Growth] for insights on which strategies could work best for your business.

8. Run small-scale research campaigns and assess them

Your first attempt to link to your target audience may fail, but an initial misstep does not mean that you have found the wrong audience. Relationships with customers aren’t that distinct from real-life relationships, so use multiple methods to convey your message. You can test anything from email marketing campaigns to social network campaigns to landing page templates and see what works best. 

Try several small campaigns within the same target audience niche at once, taking note of which campaigns succeed and which ones die down. Too many companies have automated social posts, but they lack a piece of engagement that could really differentiate them from their rivals. Consider creating dedicated accounts, such as a devoted Twitter customer support account or start advertising your product with keeping TikTok marketing in your strategy. Then, respond quickly to customer tweets when you receive them. Interacting with your customers and followers quickly will help you stay ahead of your competitors.

Tap here if you want to check out top social media competitor analysis tools.

Takeaway

Hard work defining your target audience can help you develop your brand strategy and b2b linkedin content marketing plan. It will become a strong foundation you can use to build your brand. If you’re working with various types of target audience and just one marketer, don’t feel like you need to concentrate on every audience in one go. You should target one audience group per campaign to ensure you get everything right.

Here’s how to measure social media success!

Using a social media scheduling tool can also help you find the people who interact most with your posts. Besides using them to manage your social media profiles, you can use them to check the performance of your content and the kind of people who engage with your account.

RecurPost is one tool that will provide audience insights and demographics with a unique feature like bulk scheduling social media. It will also let you know the best time to post on your social media channels to get the most engagement.

Sign up for its free 14-days trial and see the results for yourself!

Happy targeting!

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Dinesh Agarwal

Dr. Dinesh Agarwal, founder of RecurPost, transformed from academic researcher to social media technology innovator in 2013. With a doctorate in Cloud Computing, he applied scientific principles to develop a pioneering social media management tool that streamlined content scheduling processes for digital marketers, leading to its successful acquisition. Today, his RecurPost platform serves as an enterprise-grade social media automation solution helping over 100,000 businesses optimize their online presence. Dr. Agarwal actively contributes to the social media marketing ecosystem through educational content, including conference presentations, podcast interviews, and in-depth articles focusing on social media optimization techniques and algorithmic content distribution strategies.