Know Your Audience: Key Strategies to Help Your Business Reach Its Target Customer

Whether you’re the owner, the chief marketer, or simply the Jack (or Jill) of all trades at your company, chances are making sure your business stands out in an increasingly crowded online environment is one of your biggest worries. After all, in the age of mobile technologies, customers have seemingly unlimited choices when it comes to the products they want to buy as well as the companies they want to support. So how can you help your company not just stand out, but be downright irresistible?

 

The answer is simple — but it’s not easy. You’ve got to know your audience, where to find them, how to talk to them, and how to serve them.

 

Do Your Research

Whether you’re retailing or e-tailing, you can’t exactly sell to your customers if you don’t know who they are and what they want. This is Marketing 101: you’ve got to know how to find your audience and give them what they need. Fortunately, in the digital age, that’s easier than ever.

 

The methods for getting to know your customers are more accessible, affordable, and effective than ever. One example includes Facebook and the various analytics tools that allow you to filter research according to a number of demographic filters, from age and gender to industry and location.

 

Even though it might begin with Facebook, though, it mustn’t end there. After all, as prolific as Facebook may be, your ideal market may not exist solely among the massive population of habitual Facebook users. Millennials and Generation Z, for example, are far more likely to use Twitter and Instagram than Facebook. So, Facebook analytics should be only one prong of your online consumer research. It should also be combined with other strategies, such as online surveys, keyword searches, and even economic and commercial real estate metrics in the cities where your target customers live.

 

Happy Landings

Ironically, your company’s landing page is perhaps the most important element of your businesses’ entire online presence, and yet it’s also often the least well-developed element. To capture your target audience’s attention and, especially, to keep it, your landing page matters. A lot. Your landing page should be the central hub for getting your customers to where they want and need to be on your site, converting them from prospects to purchasers.

 

The landing page is the nexus for connecting your customer to all your company’s awesome products and services, without leaving any target customer behind. But that means you have to use strategy. You can’t possibly describe all your company’s products and services in-depth on the landing page, after all. That will only make for a cluttered and confusing mess that will quickly have your target audience clicking to another website.

 

What you can do instead is entice your target customer — all your target customers — with images, product descriptions, and easy-to-use links that will guide them to appropriate product pages or informational pages that most interest them. After all, you’re not just trying to sell to one target demographic but, ideally, to many. Your landing page is where you bring together your ideal customers, give them a taste of the awesomeness of your company, and then guide them to where they want to go to learn more (and, hopefully, seal the deal with a purchase).

 

Plus, landing pages like these are another great tool for customer research because you can track their “clicks,” figuring out what draws the interest of paying customers — and what doesn’t. And don’t be afraid to experiment with landing pages. Try out a couple and see which one gets the most clicks and conversions after performing appropriate strategic research, learning about the marketing funnel if you’re not already familiar, and implementing proper SEO tactics.

 

Get Creative

When you’re trying to reach your target audience, don’t be afraid to mix things up a bit. The beauty of social media is that, when it comes to marketing, the only real limit is your imagination. The last ten years have been marked by a host of clever social media marketing campaigns that got audiences talking, engaging, and buying, without marketers having to spend a king’s ransom on more formal advertising.

 

In addition to harnessing the creative potential of social media, you can also reach your target audience by aligning your company with the most powerful voices in your target demographic. Now, more than ever, influencers are shaping what customers do, want, and buy. Whether you’re targeting young millennials who turn to their favorite influencers to stay on trend and on point, or busy working professionals seeking the advice of their preferred experts to help them make their buying decisions, partnering with voices your target customers trust can be a crucial advantage in reaching your desired audience. The only caveat is to make sure your customers are clear on your relationship with the influencers. If you’re paying the influencer for their endorsement, the customers need to know that immediately and unequivocally. Otherwise, when the truth comes out, and it always eventually does, your customers’ trust will be gone.

 

The Takeaway

In an increasingly crowded virtual marketplace, capturing the attention of your target audience can feel like a nearly impossible feat — but with a little time and a lot of strategy, it’s easier than you think! It all begins with understanding who your audience is, as well as what they want, need, and expect. From there, you can set to work building informative, captivating, and otherwise irresistible custom-made to draw your ideal customer in — and keep them coming back!