Is Your Target Audience Defined Enough to Grow Your Business?

Target audiences are often overlooked or undervalued when people are starting their business or pivoting their business. Entrepreneurs often think, "shouldn't anyone who wants to buy my product or service be my target audience?" This kind of thinking, however, can get you trapped from a business standpoint - 1) in your own head, which then allows you to think that every whim or idea you have is a good one for your business and 2) in a cycle of not knowing how to move forward based on what's doing well or not doing well with your consumers. Not having a defined target audience makes analytics and data very difficult to perform or evaluate objectively.

What is a target audience and why is it important?

A target audience is a group of people or businesses that are most likely to purchase your products or services. There is usually common characteristics that bind them together as a group, like age, gender, location, education, income, interests, etc.

Defining a target audience is important because it helps you streamline your budget and resources when marketing to or trying to grow your customer base. Rather than throw a huge bucketful of confetti in the air and see what sticks, we recommend handing the confetti directly to the people we know will be most likely to buy. You don't want to spend money trying to cater to everyone; you want to define your target audience so your outreach can be intentional and personal for those that are most likely to make a purchase.

Your target audience definition should include the following criteria:

• Demographic Information

• Psychographic Information

• Goals, Challenges, Pain Points

• Values

• Preferred Channels

• Preferred Content Type (if its relevant)

• Buying Behaviour

Sometimes you have more than one person or business that you can see buying your products or services. That's great! You can have multiple target audiences, but you really should define your 1) Target Audience, 2) Secondary Audience, 3) Tertiary Audience and so on. This will help you divide your marketing budget and other resources accurately to get the most ROI (return on investment) from the money you put in to gaining customers.

Writing a Customer Profile

After you've defined your target audience, it's usually beneficial to write a more detailed customer profile so everyone that touches your business can be on the same page as to who your target audience is and how you define them. Even if it's only you in the business, a target audience or customer profile, will keep you honest when thinking through new goals, marketing ideas, and more.

You want to make sure every business decision you make is based on how your target audience would act or react to that decision.

A detailed customer profile should place the binding characteristics from your target audience definition (see above) into more of a story or profile format. You should go as far as naming the person, finding a picture of someone who fits the description of your target audience, and describing their life, what they do, what kind of job they have, their interests and so on. This will help you to not waste time, money, or resources on ideas or marketing dollars that won't move the needle for your prospects.

Sometimes as your business grows your target audience also needs to change or shift. For example, if you are a business coach and speaker and you are ready to charge higher fees for your time and/or speaking engagements, you may need to shift or change your target audience from middle-class individuals, start-ups and small businesses to individuals with higher income and medium-sized businesses. This would be the prime time for you to stop, look at your business goals and re-evaluate your target audience and customer profiles. These changes should be driven by your business goals and objectives. It would also be a good time to re-define exactly who you are targeting and how you do it.