What Is Target Audience and How to Find Yours

In the world of business, speaking to everyone means speaking to no one. 

If you want to make every marketing pound count and see the results you’re after, there’s one area you should prioritise over all others – defining your target audience. 

In the following sections, we take a deep dive into the topic, uncovering what this term means and how to find your target audience as a business. 

What Does Target Audience Mean?

Target audience refers to a specific group of people whom you want to target with your marketing. These are the people most likely to show an interest in the products or services that you offer as a business. Most companies have multiple target audiences that they strive to attract via different efforts and strategies. 

Keep in mind that “target audience” isn’t the same as “target market”. While the target market represents the group of people your product or service is designed for, the target audience consists of those in your target market that your marketing efforts are intended for. In other words, the target audience is all about who you’re trying to reach as a brand.  

Needless to say, having a well-defined target audience is essential for creating personalised and effective marketing messages. It will enable you to optimise your marketing efforts and reach the right audience without spending a fortune.

Examples of Target Audiences for Small Businesses

Let’s look at a few target audience examples:

• For a retail store in Liverpool, the target audience could be busy professionals and families within a 5 km radius.
  
• For an online clothing store, the target audience could be eco-conscious millennials interested in sustainable fashion.
  
• A small coffee shop’s target audience will probably be remote workers and students seeking quiet workspaces with fast card machine payments. 

As these examples show, the right target audience isn’t about reaching everyone. It’s about understanding who truly connects with your product or service, and shaping your business around their needs.

Benefits of Knowing Your Target Audience

Knowing your target audience naturally allows for personalised marketing campaigns. It helps marketing managers and teams allocate marketing resources better and ultimately allows for improvements in business strategy.

Understanding who you’re marketing to also results in better customer relationships, higher customer satisfaction, and a competitive advantage over rivals in the market. By targeting those with higher purchase intention, marketers can prevent wasting money, bringing down costs for the business.

Not to mention that a well-defined target audience can help drive sales, improve return on investment, and quickly build a positive brand image. 

Types of Target Audiences

When defining your audience, it’s fundamental to understand that there are different target audience categories. 

For example, target audience types include the intended target audience, the primary target audience, cold audiences, warm audiences, and customers. All of these differ from one another and require specific marketing. 

But most importantly, the types of target audiences can be segmented based on demographics, location, psychology, and behaviour. 

Demographic Targeting

Target audience demographics are all about the measurable population statistics. 

When defining your audience based on demographics, it’s key to factor in things like:

• Age groups;
• Gender;
• Income level;
• Marital status;
• Education;
• Religion;
• Occupation.

For example, imagine that you’re offering personal tennis lessons. Based on demographic targeting, your audience could be 20-35-year-old professionals in your area with an income level that can support this expensive sport. 

Geographic Targeting

Geographic targeting, on the other hand, specifically refers to location-based targeting. Depending on the type of business you’re running, you could be focusing on local, national, or even international targeting.

Let’s say that you’re trying to market a small, London-based coffee shop. Your target audience will most likely be based in London, perhaps even in a specific neighbourhood. On the other hand, brands like Coca-Cola have different target audience groups across countries and continents.  

Psychographic Targeting

One of the more challenging target audience types to identify and understand is psychographic targeting. This is where understanding your target audience’s interests, values, beliefs, and lifestyles comes in. 

Naturally, psychographic targeting requires more resources, capabilities, and advanced analytics. 

For instance, a sustainable fashion brand that specifically targets eco-conscious consumers is adequately making use of psychographic targeting.

Behavioural Targeting

Behavioural targeting is no less challenging as it’s based on consumer behaviour. Things like purchase patterns, product usage, and brand loyalty are equally important when defining this type of audience. 

Some of the questions you can ask when setting up your behavioural targeting include:

• How did you hear about us?
• What channels do you use to find information related to the products or services we offer?
• What social media channels do you use?
• Are you active online?

A popular example of behavioural targeting is when companies that sell products or services online target repeat customers via loyalty discounts or exclusive perks. 

How to Find Your Target Audience

Understanding the term target audience is one thing, but finding your own is another.

Identifying your target audience requires a combination of effort and strategic thinking. It consists of in-depth target audience analysis, market research, a look into your existing customer base, and more.

Here’s how to get started. 

Step 1: Conduct Market Research

The very first step of finding your target customers is investing in thorough market research. 

If your budget allows it, work with a professional third-party company that can help you run a detailed audience analysis. Collect demographic information and data about consumer behaviours from your niche or industry. 

In case you’re working alone or relying on internal expertise, consider the following options: 

• Surveys – Request feedback from shoppers who are already spending with you or potential customers from your space.
  
• Focus groups – Create focus groups to discuss things like consumer needs, pain points, interests, hobbies, and more.
  
• Social media listening – Monitor what people have to say about your brand across Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and other social media channels. Use tools like Sprout Social, Hootsuite, and Brandwatch.

Don’t underestimate the power of competitor research. Find out who your rivals are targeting, how they position their offering, and how they’re communicating with potential customers. 

Step 2: Analyse Your Current Customer Base

Next, think about the customers that you already have – your existing audience.

Review your existing customers and look for any patterns. Who are your most loyal customers? Why do they choose your business over others? What pain points are you solving via your products or services? 

Answering these questions can help you find your ideal target audience based on things like purchase intent, interactions, and engagement.

Step 3: Create Buyer Personas

Buyer personas are a must when defining your brand’s target audience. This is a written profile that represents your ideal customers, almost like a resume that portrays everything you know about your perfect shopper. 

As a business, you can have multiple buyer personas. When crafting each one, it’s key to consider the different phases of the buyer journey. 

Here are the core three things to include:

• Demographic data – List things like age, gender, income, and education;
  
• Psychographics – Outline interests, lifestyle, challenges, and goals;
  
• Behavioural traits – Note down purchasing habits, preferred marketing channels.

For example, one of your buyer personas might be the “Busy Barry” – aged 35-45, London-based, values quick transactions and prefers contactless card payments for convenience. 

As a business, marketing to this shopper and making them happy could include age-specific messaging with a focus on speed and convenience. 

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Step 4: Use Analytics Tools

To make the most of any available data you already have from campaigns or other marketing efforts, use the right analytics tools. 

There are plenty of available digital tools designed to help businesses track customer behaviours and understand preferences. 

Today, some of the most popular options to rely on include:

• Google Analytics – Helps identify website traffic sources, user demographics, and behaviour.
  
• Meta audience insights – Gives an in-depth analysis of age, gender, lifestyle, interests, and behaviours of Facebook and Instagram users.
  
• Sprout Social or Hootsuite – Offers audience metrics and data on content performance, follower demographics, and sentiment analysis across social media platforms.
  
• SEMrush or Ahrefs – SEO and keyword research tools that offer insights into what your target audience is actively searching for online.

Having a reliable CRM system in place is also a must for gathering information about current customers who are already shopping from you. 

Step 5: Segment Your Audience

Now that you’ve gathered all of the above-mentioned insights, it’s time to create different target audiences via segmentation. 

Chances are that you have multiple products or services to offer. But even if you don’t, it’s highly likely that you can market your products to different customer types. 

Divide your audience into smaller, specific target audience groups based on traits. For example, one customer segment may be interested in seasonal offers, meaning that you’ll have to intrigue them with Christmas or Easter deals. At the same time, there are your first-time buyers vs repeat customers, who demand a completely different approach. Customers looking for affordable products will be tempted by entirely different things compared to those interested in premium solutions. 

When segmenting your audience, don’t forget to identify negative market segments. Think about all of the consumers that you don’t want to reach for one reason or another – price sensitivity, interests, hobbies, opinions. Eliminating negative segments from your target markets can help reduce the cost of customer acquisition and dramatically increase performance. 

Step 6: Test and Refine Your Audience Targeting

Last but not least, monitor your performance based on the target audiences you’ve identified and, where possible, make improvements. 

To avoid wasting money, run small-scale marketing campaigns to test your messaging and targeting. Track responses and engagement to spot the weak areas and uncover opportunities for adjustment. 

Tools and Techniques to Identify Your Target Audience

The good news is that there are several techniques that you can use to identify your target audience and make your service offerings appealing to specific groups of people. 

Some of the tested and proven tools and tactics we recommend trying are:

• Online Tools for Audience Research – Google Analytics, social media analytics, and keyword research tools like SEMrush and Google Keyword Planner;
  
• Customer feedback tools – Surveys via tools like SurveyMonkey, Google Forms or Typeform and reviews and feedback from existing customers via email encouragement;
  
• Competitive analysis – Analyse competitor marketing strategies and target audience segmentation. Monitor competitors’ social media profiles, content, and advertising strategies;
  
• Real-time data from sales systems – Use POS systems and card machine sales reports to identify purchasing trends.

These are only a few of the common business practices business owners rely on to identify target audiences and reach prospective customers. 

Aligning Your Marketing Strategy with Your Target Audience

Implementing a successful marketing strategy comes down to synchronising your target audience and your efforts to meet one ultimate goal – reaching more people and attracting more customers.

You can do so by:

• Crafting personalised marketing messages – Use your target audience insights and buyer personas to tailor content and address the needs and interests of specific groups.
  
• Choose the right marketing channels – Find out where your target audience spends the most time online and make sure you’re active on these channels.
  
• Engagement, engagement, engagement – Post content that resonates with different target groups that you’ve identified and get people involved with your brand. Run social media contests, polls, and Q&A sessions that inspire discussions.

Your target audience shouldn’t live separately from your marketing strategy. It should be approached as the essence of anything you do – the heart of your marketing efforts.

Common Mistakes When Defining Your Target Audience

Defining your target audience is easy once you know how to approach the process. Still, there are a few common mistakes that can make it difficult to craft marketing strategies that yield results. 

One of the most frequently seen issues related to defining your target audience is targeting a broad audience. This leads to a lack of focus and an inability to optimise your marketing.

Another common mistake is ignoring customer feedback and not using the data you have access to. Listen to what your shoppers have to say and use it to make your target audience even more specific and to the point. 

Many businesses go wrong by focusing on assumptions rather than research. Remember – defining your target audience is all about data, not what you or your team members think about the right customer. 

Avoiding these popular mistakes can position you one step ahead of your competitors.

Finding and Reaching Your Ideal Target Audience

Discovering the specific audience that you should market to doesn’t have to be a challenging and expensive endeavour. 

Start by creating a step-by-step journey that you and your team can follow. Observe your competitors and research the market, use analytical tools and monitor your existing shoppers. All of these activities will help you get to know the ideal shopper better, allowing you to adapt your marketing strategy for maximum results. 

Frequently Asked Questions

How can I create a target audience profile for my brand?

You can craft a target audience profile for your brand by putting together vital information like location, age, gender, job title, industry, education level, hobbies, interests, and social media usage.

Can a business have more than one target audience?

Yes, in fact, most businesses have multiple target audiences based on the products or services that they offer.

How specific should I be when defining my target audience?

As specific as you can. For example, don’t stop at “women aged 18-40” but instead try to create audiences that look like “single women aged 18-40, living in urban areas, who are health-conscious and spend online”.