If you want to maximize sales and get the most out of your marketing budget, you need to define your target market. By identifying who you are selling your products to, you can answer other important questions in marketing such as, why should they buy your product? What do they have to gain from purchasing your product?
There are very few products that universally marketable, like salt. So unless you’re in the salt business, not everyone is going to want to buy what you’re selling. If you don’t find out who would want to buy your product or service, then your marketing campaign will cost you a fortune. Not only will it burn a hole through your wallet, but your conversion rates will be low and your customer acquisition rate will be high – exactly the opposite of what you want. Therefore, consider it essential to identify your target audience and here are some tips to help you do just that:
Understand the problem you’re solving
The first step in defining your target audience to have a clear idea of what problems your product or services solve. By doing this, you can then work your way to finding out who is most likely to suffer from these problems.
Make broad assumptions then narrow them down slowly
Tip #1 is likely to give you a relatively large population sample, unless you’re selling an extremely niche product. This is a good start – begin with larger groups that would be interested in your brand then get more specific by considering things like gender, age, location, etc.
You can also use these groups to eliminate people from your target audience. And don’t just narrow down your audience from one group. Use different groups and identifiers to narrow down your audience even more!
Create a customer profile
Let’s say you’ve come to the conclusion that the person most likely to buy your product is a woman in her early to mid 20’s, living in an inner city neighborhoods, and making between $35-45k per year. There you go – you have your customer profile!
Once you have a customer profile, your job isn’t job yet – now you need to research your customer. Details about who your customer is will give you useful information, such as your customer’s habits, buying behavior, social media use and so forth. This information is a great guide that will ultimately help you market to this audience.
Use Surveys
Customer surveys can be a great too to find out more information about your target audience. You can use customer surveys once after selling your product or service. This will help you find more about your customer’s shopping experience so you can improve experiences.
You can also use your survey results to find out who your customers are by asking questions about their background. While the tips above are based on assumptions, surveys provides concrete data on actual people who are drawn to your product.
Use Influencer Marketing To Reach Target Audiences
Social media has quickly become one of the biggest parts of any person’s lives, particularly when it comes to business, where social comments change the way that consumers feel about a brand within a matter of seconds. In days gone by, most companies focused on influencing potential consumers by using paid advertising campaigns, but now social networks have placed a focus on brands building relationships with their audience.
Today’s consumers don’t care about the companies that try to sell them products that they don’t want or need. The modern marketplace looks to brands they can trust, and to build that trust, organizations are frequently turning to influencers. Influencers are people who already have a relationship with the consumers a brand wants to connect with. With influencer marketing, companies can easily increase their credibility and convince their customers to make more purchases. Here’s how to get started.
Choose the Right Influencer
A lot of companies assume that the best way to take advantage of influencer marketing is to pay for the most famous influencer they can find. However, celebrity status isn’t always as important as it seems in the influencer world. Most consumers prefer to engage with micro-influencers – people with just a few thousand followers. Micro influencers still have sway over a particular portion of a company’s target market, but they’re often far more relatable than a standard celebrity.
Additionally, micro-influencers also have the benefit of being a lot less expensive to work with than most major influencers. This means that many companies can pay to work with a number of influencers at once, boosting their brand reputation in various niches across their industry simultaneously.
Know Your Audience
Deciding between micro and larger influencers isn’t the only major decision a company needs to make when making sure that they’re collaborating with the right people. There are many different kinds of influencer out there, including Instagram influencers, people who post videos on YouTube and even thought leaders who are best known for their articles and eBooks.
The best way for any business to make sure that they’re working with the right influencer to increase conversions is to get to know their audience first. If a company knows their customers and what kind of people they turn to for advice, then they can engage influencers that will help to eliminate the roadblocks that might be stopping their consumers from making a purchase. The right influencer will understand a brand’s consumers, and the pain points that they face every day.
When an influencer understands what their audience is going through when trying to make a purchasing decision, they can make certain costs seem smaller, and risks seem more worthwhile.
Reward Your Influencers
Finally, it’s crucial for companies to make sure that they’re staying on the “good side” of their influencers. With that in mind, businesses should set up ground rules at the beginning of working with an influencer so that both parties know what they’re going to get out of the arrangement. At the same time, it’s important for a brand to regularly check in with their influencer and make sure that they’re still happy advocating for the organisation.
Regularly rewarding influencers with free products, shout-outs and other benefits is a great way to keep them happy and dedicated to a company.
-Ronn Torossian, 5WPR CEO
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