Figuring Out Your Target Market + Audience

Whether you are just starting a business or an established business, it is important to know your target market and target audience. These key groups of people will influence business decisions, marketing campaigns and help your business succeed. Today let’s chat about some ways to identify your target market and audience.

Target Market vs. Target Audience

While often used together, target market and target audience are different. Your target market is an broad group of people your brands wants to sell to, while your audience is narrower. Your audience is a particular group within your target market characterized by behavior and demographics, whom the company expects to buy your product or service.  

McDonalds example from Oberlo:

• Target market: One of their core target markets is young children. For this segment, they provide play areas, happy meals complete with toys, and marketing campaigns featuring Disney characters and Ronald McDonald.
• Target Audience: Although one of McDonald’s key target markets is children, there’s a big problem with this target market: Children don’t have any purchasing power. In other words, it’s not the children who buy McDonald’s products — it’s the adults in their lives. So, McDonald’s create the Happy Meal to serve their target market of children. However, they create advertisements promoting the Happy Meal aimed at their target audience of parents.

Why is it important to know your target market + target audience?

These groups are important to make business decisions (target market) and decisions for specific campaigns (target audience). Knowing these groups will help you develop your brand, plan advertising spend, appeal to customers with imagery and language, etc.

When considering your budget for an upcoming campaign you will want to spend your money wisely to get the best Return on Investment (ROI). Using your knowledge of your audience can help reach the right people who will relate to your products and/or services and act accordingly. If you haven’t figured out your market or audience, you run the risk of a campaign that may not connect with anyone. According to Oberlo, “if you target everyone, you’re actually targeting no one. You can’t be all things to all people.”

How do you determine your target market + audiences?

What Benefit Do You Provide to Your Potential Customers?

First, identify your target market by identifying the benefit your business provides. To figure this out, ask “what problem do we solve?” This goes beyond a basic definition of your business but will show what you provide for a customer.

Example:

• General campground definition: Campground ABC is a campground in the Colorado mountains
• What you provide your customer: Campground ABC provides a tranquil escape from city life in the rocky mountains of Colorado. Campground ABC features easy access pull-through full hookup sites, new facilities including a heated pool, and hiking trails. Campground ABC is a 5 minute drive from the entrance to Rocky Mountain NP for breathtaking views and wildlife viewing.

Understand their Behavior

Once you know the problem you are solving, it is important to understand human behavior and trends. Look into how your ideal customer makes purchasing decisions. Figure out demographics breakdowns such as location, gender, occupation, and marital status. You can take the knowledge of demographics and behavior to narrow it down from target market to target audience.

Example:

• Target Market – Baby boomers, ages 57-75 who own a recreational vehicle
• Target Audience – Married, baby boomers, ages 57-75 who own a recreational vehicle, live within 100 miles of your campground. They spend time outdoors at National Parks, and enjoy kid-free campgrounds with pools

Don’t Assume!

While, answering the question of what benefit you provide is a great place to start, you need see if there is a need for your product or service. Research is prospective. Testing is proof. Do not assume your target audience will purchase. Do testing and constantly evaluate your market and audience.

Example:

• When adding an amenity to your campground are you doing it because you want the amenity? Or are you doing it because past customers and potential customers have shown an interest in the amenity?
• If you are targeting the ‘married, baby boomers, ages 57-75 who enjoy kid-free campgrounds with pools’ don’t add a jump pad because you hear it is a profitable amenity to have at your campground.

Conclusion

Knowing your target market is a key foundation to running a successful business. Once you can determine the target market, you’ll be able to focus in on your target audience for individual campaigns. Knowledge is power and will help your business succeed. Next steps will be creating a brand that connects with your target market, advertising which makes your target audience act, and a website that answers the questions before your audience has to ask!