5 Simple Steps To Get A Complete & Clear Image Of Your Target Audience

Targeting your audience and understanding who your customer is has been an essential for all time. Though there are lots of tips on how to do just that, first-time entrepreneurs might be confused by all the new information. That happens because if you create something, to beat a disease, for example, you know who exactly your final clients are (people having said disease). But there’s another possibility too: you’re having an idea that might be useful but you are lacking a clear image of your customers. This can lead to misunderstandings for your customers, with some of the potential clients not even understanding that your product is the best option for them.

Let’s have a look at one example to be more precise: there is an increase of people in a country who want to produce and sell natural products, like dairy, fruits, vegetables etc. Then, there are some people who live in big cities and are tired of low-quality products and don’t agree with shops’ prices on farmer products. Finally, there is John who decides to create an online platform to connect these two sides, but does he really understand his target audience? Does he know the people he wants to sell farmers products to well enough?

Here’re 5 steps you and John need to follow to get to know your audience and make that sale:

#1 Start With A Narrow Definition Of Your Target Market

Basically, you need to understand which area is the best place to start your business. To start you need to find an area where most of the consumers can be your potential customers.

Example:

John lives in Moscow, Russia – a pretty big country as you know. So he won’t start his business trying to cover the whole country. Here’s what he might think: I live in Moscow, so I understand the local situation regarding farmer products better. I’ll start in Moscow and try to find some farmers across the city to join my online platform.

#2 Think About Your Customer As An Actual Person

Now that we have identified our target market, we can start the process of understanding our target audience, precisely this one person who will definitely buy/use your product. First of all, use some previously researched information to determine not only where your target audience is but also who your target audience is (you can use PEW Internet, where many publications are online). Try to think about your audience not only in a demographic way, such as age, sex, location, occupation, education, income level, but also from the psychological way, like temperament, attitudes, behavior, lifestyles.

Finally, draw an Empathy Map to create a Buyer Persona. Give your customer a name, an identity. Try to step into their shoes, see the world like they do, and answer these questions: What do they hear? See? What are they thinking about? What are they saying? What do they want?

Source: Tour Operators & Empathy with Customers

Example:

John decides to create a profile for his perfect customer. He thinks it’s a middle aged woman who works. She has a husband and kids and she follows a healthy lifestyle, does sport. She cares about what she and her family eat, but she also understands the real price of things so she is not ready to buy farmer products if they come at a high-price. She could spend a lot of time looking for a good performance-price ratio but in most cases, she simply does not have enough time for this.

#3 Look At Your Competitors (Or Similar Products & Services)

Try to understand their perfect customer. Who are they? Are they similar to your best one? Can you improve (correct) the profile of your perfect customer? How do they advertise to their potential customers?

Moreover, if you can imagine your perfect customer, you also can imagine how they behave and which product they choose. So you can find the description of your perfect customer at some companies not even related to your industry. However, the ways your competitors promote can be a clue for your own promotion and advertising.

Example:

As for John’s competitors, it is online shops who sell organic products. He knows that his advantage will be that potential consumers and sellers can communicate without any third party. As for other services he needs to search for some companies whose customers have a healthy lifestyle (maybe some gyms, cafes etc.).

#4 Monitor Social Media Activities

In a digital world, it is much easier to understand the way your ideal customer thinks. You can use Social Media to search their interests, to search what they are talking about. It is also a good chance to get feedback on your company. You also can figure out which content you should create so that your customer will be interested in it. Hootsuite, for example, is a very useful tool to do that.

Example:

John needs to look for some healthy lifestyle communities, groups sharing healthy recipes etc. As for the content, he may post some recipes based on the products that farmers sell. Tell stories about these farmers. Show that organic doesn’t mean expensive.

#5 Retarget In Time

The world changes, people change, and so does your business and with it, your target audience. You might not be able to understand it perfectly well but you can be as close to this goal as possible. How? Retargeting! Every time you expand your startup, ask yourself a question: does a perfect customer stay the same or do you need to change something in their profile?

Example:

John may think about other big cities in Russia where people face the same problem. He needs to pick another city, do all these steps all over again and understand as a profile of “perfect customer” for this city is different from Moscow ones. Based on this information, he can apply his ads campaign from Moscow or he will need to think about other ways of promoting in the new city.

All these 5 steps really work only together, so if you think that you missed some of them don’t wait to use them. If you are just at the beginning of your startup journey, follow them and you will see the results.

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The example given was inspired by 1000ecofarms.com