How To Identify Your Online Audience Effectively

When you know who your audience is, you are able to better direct your marketing budgets and messaging to a specific group, increasing your opportunity to convert those potential customers. Whilst some may feel that this excludes you from other potential audiences, aiming your dollars in marketing too far and too wide could mean a low return on investment and efforts. This post looks at some steps you can take to effectively identify who your online audience is.  

Who are your current clients?

By looking at who your current clients are, you can identify things they may have in common with each other.

• Are they of a particular age or gender?
• Does their location determine access to your products or services?

When viewing these details, you gain important insight into patterns and trends for your business. You might also be able to segment them into specific groups so that your campaigns are correctly aligned with their needs.

Who is your competition?

Your competition can hold many answers to many questions, if you’re looking in the right places. Some ways in which you can achieve this is by looking at their online assets. Things like their website, social media platform and posts and customer reviews. This way you can see the types of products or services they are providing, and who is interacting with them from a customer level.

What needs does your product or service meet?

When you came up with your business concept and ideas, you had a particular thing in mind – providing a solution to someone’s need. By understanding exactly what this is, it can allow you to better target your audience as well. Do you need to be accessible 7 days a week, 24 hours per day? Is it a service that’s provided in person, online or both? Is there an age relevance to your services? All of these factors form part of the audience identification process.

Have you been looking at your data?

The data doesn’t lie, as long as the tracking has been set up correctly. With tools like Google Analytics and Social Media reporting dashboards, there is no reason why your audience should be a guessing game. Data is invaluable when reviewed correctly and can be key to altering current strategies and plans. Is there new information coming through this data that you have not focused on before? Could there be an audience you are neglecting that is now being seen through this information? Use it wisely and to your business advantage.

Conclusion

The above steps can give you a clear pathway when effectively identifying your target audience. It’s also recommended to go through this process on a quarterly basis to ensure you are headed down the right track. Things change, people’s needs change – you need to be there when they do. Don’t get stuck in the same old habits and traps that has left your business wondering where did my clients all go? Your competitors will jump in and take them over if they are reviewing their audience and needs regularly. If you need more help with your online assets and need to have an expert review your current status, contact Doreen to help you create the right strategies and plans, and execute them effectively to get the most out of your digital marketing dollars. Get in touch today!