After spending years in the planning phase of your business, you’re finally at the point where it is time to open your business to the masses. The store shelves are stacked with products while you patiently wait for customers to arrive. As you wait, you notice only a handful of customers show up to your grand opening. You ask yourself these questions, ”Why did hardly anyone show up for such a momentous day?” and ”What did I do wrong?”
The answers to these questions are not hard to find if you take the right approach to understanding who is my target audience. A target audience is simply a group of individuals (potential customers) who may be interested in a certain product offering while sharing common traits. Often times, these common traits are ignored and business owners neglect the importance of identifying a strategy that includes their target audience, which impacts the overall amount of people showing up at a storefront.
Today, as social media grows exponentially and business owners continue to expand advertising efforts to reach a multitude of potential customers, business owners must be sure the right questions are asked when determining their target audience.
Here are some simple questions to help define your target audience:
3 Simple Target Audience Questions
1. What is the age of your Target Audience?
Depending on the types of products you sell, it is important to note you would not target a group of buyers ranging from the ages of 13-21 for products such as diapers. If your product offering is centered on diapers, then knowing the age demographics can help to forecast who is the most likely to have an interest in this particular industry and those who you would receive the most financial support from.
One way to center your brand towards a younger age group target audience is the use of video promotions through the availability and use of different social media channels. By contrast, older generations tend to search for information about a product on the web or from product reviews versus the entertainment value social media offers.
2. Is your target audience mostly Men or Women?
Much like the age of your target audience, their gender is just as important. You would not target men to wear high-heal shoes unless a specific time during the year like Christmas or other holidays catered to women dictate it. However, for all other parts of the year, it’s a safe bet the likelihood of converting those types of sales targeting the same audience (men) are slim to none.
At the outset of any new business or businesses in operation for several years, it is important to eliminate as much wasteful expenditures as possible while re-targeting those resources to customers who may have purchased products in the past. In fact, social media channels are making it easier for business owners to eliminate wasteful expenditures by providing business owners with in-depth ways to push adverts towards a certain gender demographic.
For example, if you are targeting women with your products it may be a good idea to ’Champion a Cause’ such as cancer research to drive the sales of your brand. According to a recent study by Ernst and Young Groundbreakers, women reinvest up to 90% of their money back into local communities and families.
Related: http://five-important-factors-to-consider-when-applying-for-a-business-credit-card
3. Where does your target audience live?
Location. Location. Location. Sounds redundant right? Maybe. However, the importance of knowing where your target audience lives can not be understated. If you are an air-conditioning service provider, the workable radius of your target audience would ideally be within a certain distance from your location base. Targeting an audience for air-conditioning services in California when your location base is in Texas is unlikely to produce the amount of sales through advertising efforts. In this event, your adverts on social media are more than likely to go unnoticed.
Rather than focusing your efforts on adverts that encompass a wide area, channel your resources to areas of need within a small radius of your location base. A great way of targeting an audience within your location base is attending local pop-up shops. These local events offer an opportunity to meet with people in the community to share your adverts with and eventually target as an audience.
Although knowing the age, gender, and location are important, understanding your target audience goes beyond these three key demographics. Individual buying habits can be easier to forecast if you are willing to do the research and can be profitable in the long run. Also, emotional triggers, which is another part of forecasting, provides insight on personal choices your target audience will make when it comes to purchasing. With these three simple target audience questions, aiming is no longer an issue. Now that the basics are available, it is up to you to hit the bullseye.
For more amazing articles please follow BLKPRENEURSHIP on social media
Facebook: http://facebook.com/blkpreneurship
Instagram: http://instagram.com/blkpreneurship_
Twitter: http://twitter.com/blkpreneurship
