How To Identify Your Target Audience

Startups are created when there is an existing problem which needs to be solved.  Startups often spend years in moulding and creating a product or a service which aims to address a need or a problem.  However, it can be easy to lose track of the end goal if the product or the service is not in the hands of the actual target audience.  Target audience is a group of people you want to reach with your publication, advertisement (ads) or a message.  For example ads related to non vegetarian food would not do any good if they are placed in areas with a high vegetarian population.  Ads related to high end cutting edge computers would not do any good if they are not placed in areas which have a high density of industries.  Simply put identifying a target audience will translate into sales for your product or service.

Target audiences can be identified by following three simple steps

1. Creating a customer profile:

The first step in identifying a target audience is to assign certain characteristic attributes to the audience which include

• Age: What is the age demographic that is most likely to use your product or service.  This is important because customers across different age groups think differently, which would mean the marketing campaign needs to be tweaked accordingly.

• Gender:  This is an important metric to be established because a product needs to be able to address these differences.  For example, it does not make sense for a male grooming product to be advertised to the female gender.

• Spending Capability: The ability of a target audience to spend greatly affects marketing strategies.  People who are able to afford spending luxuriously respond well to marketing campaigns which stress luxury and exclusivity.  For example, OnePlus the mobile phone developer positioned itself as a flagship killer with the features of a flagship.  It was able to appeal to the middle class spectrum which in turn translated into a huge volume of sales.

Other key characteristics can include marital status, geographic location, hobbies, interests and many more.

2. Conduct market research

A lot can be gleaned from conducting primary and secondary market research.  Primary research involves learning about customer buying habits through direct contact like surveys, interviews and focus groups.  This is why a lot of startups and businesses usually ask customers to answer survey questionnaires when they make a purchase. Secondary market research is a kind of a market research method that involves collecting information or data from secondary sources.  This means a business collects and uses information that has previously been collected by some other person or entity.   A simple example would be food delivery platforms like Swiggy and Zomato asking feedback about a recent food order.  The purpose of this is to curate a better restaurant selection experience for you when placing a new order.

3. Observing competition

It is safe to say that no product or a service would be a monopoly as new players will keep on emerging in the market.  It is always a good idea to know what your competitors are doing with their businesses. This would offer fresh insights related to your marketing strategy like what other offerings could be added to your portfolio, or how a marketing campaign can be changed to tailor the ever changing customer demands.  Analysing a competitor can lead to valuable modifications to your offering and yield new business.  An example here would be how Zomato acquired UberEats thereby making them the market leader in the food delivery industry in India.  Previously Swiggy used to rule the market by holding a majority share in the market.  Zomato realised that instead of putting in resources to penetrate the market, acquiring UberEats would give them the advantage.  Zomato now holds around 50% of the market in the food delivery business in India.

Target audiences will need to be reassessed periodically on a regular basis.  The customer profile needs to be refined regularly and the marketing campaign changed accordingly.  As the market trends keep constantly evolving, one can stay ahead of the curve by doing their due diligence in gathering market research data.  Start defining and understanding your target audience so that you can make the most of your precious time.