Previously, we have covered what I would consider the first step in almost any advertising effort: brand discovery. The next step is establishing a brand voice, which takes us into step three, audience discovery. So far, in the first two steps, we have established who we are and how we convey who we are, but now we need to look at who we are saying it to.
Failing to establish a target audience can lead to huge losses down the line in the form of poorly performing campaigns and wasted advertising budgets. This may sound confusing, and you may be wondering where to start, but there is no need to reinvent the wheel.
It’s really quite simple. Start with existing information (i.e. Google Analytics demographics, audience reports on Facebook Insights, etc.).
Google Analytics:
Facebook:
This allows you to view basic demographics on your audience. The examples above show that the core audience is M/F, 25-54. This is your starting point. Not every person between the ages of 25 and 54 is within your audience, so you need to narrow it down more.
To do so, you need to ask and answer some questions about these people – create an audience persona. An audience persona is a profile of an individual within your target audience that’s based off specific personal and professional characteristics. What do they do for a living? What is their role within their company? What do you know about their media consumption, interests, hobbies, etc.? These questions are going to vary based on your current, personal audience, but the principle remains the same: create a detailed profile of your potential customer for targeting and messaging purposes.
Do you need help discovering who your target audience should be? We can help you find out who you should be targeting in order to maximize your marketing efforts and budget.