A target audience is a group that a marketing message appeals to.
Businesses often have more than one target audience.
A company selling garden trampolines would have a target market of both adults and children. Adults are the final purchasers, but the child often convinces the parent to make that all important conversion.
Finding and reaching out to each target audience is a critical aspect when marketing a company. Material can be customised to that group, making them much more likely to read, respond or share.
For example, a YouTube video on “10 awesome trampoline tricks” will have more appeal to children, than adults.
How to define your target audience
Many companies make the mistake of assuming they know their target audience, and taking a marketing strategy that appeals to all.
Back to the trampoline company. The sales team may make the assumption that they should target all age groups, nationwide. So they make general-isms, trying to cast a huge net.
In fact their efforts would sell a lot more trampolines if they targeted a smaller group.
For example, adults that have children, families that have gardens, families within 100 mile radius of their shop and children between certain ages, focusing different marketing material and content to those groups.
This is called a refined target audience.
Using Google Analytics, Twitter Analytics and Facebook Insights you can get a clear idea of who is visiting your website and responding to your content. Check the demographics of your users and compare them on each platform. Use a spread sheet to define your target audience groups.
For more on how to achieve results, read my post targeted online marketing.
