The essence of being a good marketer is understanding customer base and target audience. Unfortunately this is not always a cut and dry situation and there are a lot of intricacies to consider as you begin to advertise, design content, and really develop your marketing strategy. Knowing your audience helps you to be more effective on social media marketing and for digital marketing more broadly.

3 Key Questions to Ask Yourself When Defining Your Audience

While this might be considered part of the marketing “basics” on some level, it is an important aspect of strategizing that many of us take for granted at some point of our marketing careers. In interest in getting back to basics, lets consider, or perhaps, reconsider how you know who your target audience is and what your customer demographic will bring you the most success:

  1. When you began your business or developed your product, who did you think would be you audience?

This question is not the end-all be-all of defining your target audience, but it certainly is a good place to start. The truth is that sometimes an unexpected audience ends up liking your product. For example, maybe you designed a revolutionary yoga mat and figured that it would be pert for young women in large cities who’s interests align with yours, however, over time you’ve realized that older women actually tend to purchase your product because of its higher price point. This does not mean that the women you intended to target when you developed your product are out—it does mean that you need to consider how you advertise and approach marketing your product to those who are the majority of your customer base. Sometimes we are right on the money when we start our marketing efforts, but sometimes (and often) we are not and that makes it important to consider your demographic closely.

  1. What makes your target customer base actually SPEND money? What makes them a customer who converts?

There are a lot of things that go into people spending money. Motivations are highly emotional and it is important to understand what actually makes people in your target demographic want to spend money. Consider things like gender, age, location, income, and other things that are likely to factor in to spending money on a product or service as you implement marketing strategies. While this can be difficult to define sometimes, defining motivations of your target audience can make all the difference in the effectiveness of your campaigns. Below is an awesome infographic article by Visme that highlights how this worked for one industry:

  1. Have you defined key demographic features of your audience?

Before you can really get started with understanding or reconsidering your target audience, you need to need to be able to define the following key demographic features of your audience:

  • Age. Age factors into interests, purchasing products, and how content is consumed—it is perhaps one of the most important things to understand about your target audience. A target audience that is 20-30 something-s is going to look a lot different than a target audience who is 50+.
  • Gender. This may be clear if you are working with products that are gendered in some way (think makeup vs. mens shaving products). In cases where products and services are generally gendered in some way, it makes sense to incorporate visual design, language, and other features into a campaign that targets more specifically to males or females. Conversely, if your products or services are genre neutral, you are able to target both male and female audiences equally and may want to consider visual design and language that reflects that neutrality.
  • Location. Is all of your audience fixed around your location? If so, this is going to make a difference in how you define you ad demographics. However, if your reach extends further than the city you are located you are going to want to consider that as well!
  • Education. Education is tricky to consider, and sometimes not always an important factor to differentiate. An example where it might be important to consider is marketing directly to college students or recent university graduates, for example. Think of Spotify’s student discount, advertising a $4.99 rate to those currently attending school. Other times you may have an audience that is specifically college grads, or young people who have not yet further their education, or older adults who are less likely to hold diplomas but may have extensive work experience in their field.
  • Family Demographics. Are you reaching out to people who have large families? Small families? Single parent homes? Same sex couples? Same sex couples with kids? Knowing family demographics can really help you target advertisement and marketing efforts. When people can relate their family to the products or services you are selling, you are more likely to be a trusted and reputable brand.
  • Income. Income is actually a big factor to understand. If you are selling high-end products, then you are targeting a very specific group of individuals. Conversely, if you goal is to be affordable and accessible, then you might be opening yourself to a much larger audience to consider.
  • Lifestyle. What are the hobbies, interests, and activities that your audience takes a part in? Facebook advertisement, for example, allows you to target by specific interests, so knowing this kind of information about your target audience can be really valuable. That being said, having an understanding of this can also help you with designing videos, writing copy for your ads, how you design and visually represent your products or services, and how you design content for marketing.
  • Cultural Background. Depending on your industry you might want to consider cultural demographics like region, language, religion, sexual orientation, or political affiliation. You never want to alienate or turn off a large portion of potential customers, so be careful when you consider who might be consuming your content and what the actual makeup of your audience is in this regard.

  1. Have you used Google Analytics or another data platform to research your audience?

Most businesses jump right to this question, but it’s important to consider the first three questions first before you start digging into your data. Once you have a handle on what you’re hypothesizing and what you’re looking for, you can visit your Google Analytics and see who is visiting your website and make conclusions. Be careful, though, because those who are visiting your website may still not be the audience you want, which means you’ll have to look at your data differently.

The Takeaway

Demographics of your audience are critical to understand for your company’s marketing and advertising. Once you understand who your target customers are, you can design and implement a marketing strategy that effectively reaches out to them. People like to feel a sense of connection to the companies they purchase with, so the more you know about your audience the more you will be able to connect with them.

How have you used customer demographics in your own marketing? Let us know in the comments section below—we would love to hear from you!

Image Credit: linkdex.com, visme.co