You have your product or service, you’ve got a buyer persona and you’re charged and ready to go.
But unfortunately, though you’ve got the traffic, engagement and clicks that you need, you don’t seem to be getting the conversions and are spending more time disqualifying leads than closing deals.
Where is the audience you’re supposed to have for your product? You know they exist- but where are they?? Why are they not purchasing your products or services?
What is a Target Audience?
How many businesses do you think keep trying halfheartedly to attract the right customers - only to fail or never take off?
The answer is much too many.
The best way to combat your own weakness is to build a target audience and then an effective social media strategy that actually implements the attraction concepts you find in your research.
But what IS a target audience? And why is it so important to build a target audience before launching any sort of social media campaign? Let me explain.
A target audience is an easy way to pinpoint the people you want to purchase your product or service.
If social media is your stage, your target audience is the people who will come to your show to watch you. They’re interested in what you have to offer and ready to devote their time, money and energy to the solutions YOU can provide to them.
Think of it as like a pre-interested party who is ready to buy and the only catch is that you have to find them so they know who you are. It’s simple and yet complicated, all at the same time.
Why Do I Need a Target Audience?
Do you ever do target practice without a target? What about making company goals? If your answer is no and you don’t have a goal to shoot for, how will you know you’re reaching goals?
This is why you NEED to work on building a target audience.
It’s not that people who DON’T have a target audience never get sales, it’s that they have to work harder to get them and are more likely to run into unqualified leads who don’t turn into good customers or never close at all.
Building a target audience allows you to strategically place your products in front of customers who are already ready to buy.
Who wouldn't want to take advantage of that?? And that’s why you need to work on building a target audience.
Target Audience VS Target Market
First things first, it’s important to recognize the difference between a target audience and a target market.
Being new to the game, you might assume these two things are interchangeable, but we’ll show you the difference.
#1 Target Market
A target market is everyone your services and products are meant to help. From the top of the funnel down to the bottom, this includes them all.
#2 Target Audience
This group is everyone who follows through on a purchase of your products and services, whether or not they were a part of your target market or not.
We won’t come right out and say that daydreaming about your target market is bad, but progress comes from action from forethought. Not just the dreams.
Instead of daydreaming, pay attention to your target audience and find out why they’re purchasing your products and services, as well as how they’re using them.
After all, someone is purchasing your product. Finding out who they are can help you expand your target market and build a better target audience.
How to Easily Withdraw a Target Audience From Your Target Market
So now it’s time to take who your buyers already are, and make them into who you NEED them to be by withdrawing the proper target audience from your target market.
The first step, like any good plan, requires an outline.
Outlining Your Target Market
Who do you think is going to be purchasing your product or service? What do your dream customers actually look like? What problems and obstacles are your customers facings and how are YOUR products and services helping them solve and overcome those issues?
These are questions you need to have answers for before you can really get started building a target audience from your target market.
And you can start by asking yourself what your ideal customer would look like.
#1 How old are they?
#2 What is their role?
#3 What problem are they trying to solve? (Why did they come looking for you?)
#4 What mediums do they use for work and communication? (Where are you most likely going to find them in a comfortable position and environment?)
#5 What are their interests and passions?
#6 Who are they trying to serve?
#7 Who are your competitors solving?
#8 What is their level of education?
#9 Where are they located?
#10 What’s their job title?
#11 What industry are they in?
#12 What is their household income?
Answering these questions will help give you a basic outline for how you need to proceed when it comes to your ideal customer and a strategy for finding them and helping them convert through friction elimination.
Crafting a Buyer Persona From Your Target Market
Now that your products are LIVE and you have a target market, we can use the data we’re gaining from the real-time interactions, shares, comments and purchases to revise the data we already have so we can make improvements.
Easy, right? All we have to do is adjust.
So….
#1 What problems are your products and services REALLY solving?
#2 Who are my competitors REALLY targeting in their efforts?
#3 What makes MY product unique? How can I leverage that to my advantage?
#4 What do my current customers REALLY look like?
#5 What am I truly trying to achieve in my industry?
Don’t think about the market you want. Think about the market you have and how you can change it, improve it, grow it, update it and continue providing key solutions to your customers by utilizing what you have.
Utilizing Data for Building a Better Target Audience
Social media offers us a wide range of data to pull from within the platform. However, there are also tools my team utilizes on a daily basis to build out a better understanding of what we know, what we need to know and then how we can use the data we find to improve our efforts.
We can use this exact same reasoning for building a better target audience.
If you’re like us, you’re always looking for more clarity about how you can make things better. And in this case, one of the best ways you can do that is to generate a full report using either the social media platform itself, or one of the cool, in-depth, social media scheduling and tracking tools like Sprout Social.
Doing this will allow you to pinpoint things specifically that are keeping you from unlocking the full potential of your social media strategy.
*When* Should You Target Your Audience?
The answer should really be “always” and “at every stage of the buyers journey” but we wanted to dig a little deeper than that for your benefit.
If we’re talking about when you should target for a sale, this is going to depend on whether you’re a B2B brand or a B2C brand.
The reasoning for this is going to be because the “research phase” that takes place before purchasing is typically significantly longer for B2B customers than with B2C customers.
For B2C Purchasers:
It’s important to remember that though the customer at the top is typically the exact same as the one on the bottom, B2C brands have another angle that they must keep in mind: gift giving!
Especially around the holidays, gift giving is an integral part of eCommerce sales.
This is why paying attention to EVERYONE who is purchasing your product is key to success. If you notice more women buying your product that’s geared towards men, you can make sure you use that knowledge to improve your ad and organic product campaigns, which could potentially accelerate and skyrocket sales.
For B2B Purchasers:
It’s vitally important for both social paid advertising campaigns and organic social media posting that your content and copy is tailored to the individual you’re talking to and talking specifically to THEIR pain points.
If this means you need to target a particular image and copy to a CEO or a Marketing Director, go for it. Whatever it takes, you need to be addressing THEIR pain points and showing them specifically how you can help by immediately providing a solution and explaining how you can implement it.
Expanding Your Target Audience is Easy as 🥧
If you’re prepared to expand your target audience, we’ve broken down the steps to make it easy as pie. Or easier. If you’re not into pie. 😏😉
There is just ONE SECRET, (that’s right. Just one) that you have to keep in mind when it comes to expanding your target audience. And that rule is…
******drumroll*******
To keep an open mind!
It sounds simple, because it is.
You don’t HAVE to only deliver content or products or tailored services to your target market.
If you’ve done any sort of market research and found that your target audience is different from how you’d planned it to be based on your target market, (maybe by a lot!) don’t sweat it, because this is giving you an opportunity to expand your target audience and ultimately make more sales!
Accepting Your Target Audience
When you learn to accept your target audience, whether or not it’s what you envisioned when building your own target audience, your brand will have an opportunity to reach new heights in your industry.
Are You Excited to Begin Building a Target Audience on Social Media?
Maybe you can’t wait to dig in and get started, but you’re not sure where to start your own growth journey on social media.
Sociallyin Can Help
Whether you’re building a target audience from your target market or need next-level social media marketing solutions, our team can help you.
We’ll create and implement a strategy that entices customers and closes deals with relative ease through incredible copy, exciting, eye-catching social media graphics, videos and photography and seal the deal with rapid growth social paid advertising.
What are you waiting for? Get in touch and let’s get social TODAY!
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