This last step might seem like an outlier in the process, but it is super important: You need to identify who your customer isn’t. Take the monday.com competitive ad example above. The team clearly decided who their audience is—and who their audience isn’t. Their audience isn’t someone looking for a simple, free Kanban solution. (That’s what Trello’s for.)
The good news is that you can use a tool—even a free tool—to analyze this data. Buffer, for example, also offers a free tier.
If you’re trying to please everyone, you’re pleasing no one. Right? It’s also true for your marketing: If you’re trying to reach everyone, you’re going to reach no one. People might see your ad or take a look at your website. But your ad and your message won’t resonate with anyone if you don’t have a specific audience in mind.
If you’re trying to please everyone, you’re pleasing no one. Right? It’s also true for your marketing: If you’re trying to reach everyone, you’re going to reach no one. People might see your ad or take a look at your website. But your ad and your message won’t resonate with anyone if you don’t have a specific audience in mind.
If you’re trying to please everyone, you’re pleasing no one. Right? It’s also true for your marketing: If you’re trying to reach everyone, you’re going to reach no one. People might see your ad or take a look at your website. But your ad and your message won’t resonate with anyone if you don’t have a specific audience in mind.
2. Look at your social followers
If you’re not incredibly clear on who your target audience is—for your branding in general, for a specific marketing channel, or for a certain campaign—you need to take a step back to identify it. You can determine who your target audience is by looking at who is engaging with your product, your brand, and your marketing. Here’s how:
That’s why it’s so important to find your target audience. If you want your marketing to appeal to this group of people, you need to make sure you create everything with them in mind.
- Location
- Age
- Career
- Household income
- Activity level
- Other brand followings
Google Analytics is the natural place to start when you’re looking for this type of information. YOu can learn:
3. Dig into your content analytics
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We need a quick clarification of terms here: Your target audience isn’t your target market. Your target market is the specific group of people that your product or your service is intended for. Your target audience, on the other hand, is the specific group of people that your marketing is trying to reach.
- Demographics. See how your users break down by location, including country and city.
- Where users are coming from. Is Twitter a big referral source? Is it a niche industry news site? A certain blogger? This gives you more information about where to target your marketing campaigns.
- Which topics resonate with them. What is and isn’t of interest to your website visitors can provide clues on who your target audience is and how to appeal to them.
- What terms they’re searching. Find out what they’re looking up in Google that is leading them to your site.
Wild One’s landing page is super well targeted—the branding, the copy, even a toy specifically positioned for WFH pet parents.
Let’s finish off with some examples of target audiences for brands we’re familiar with, to help you firm up your understanding on this concept.
4. Check out your competitors
A target audience is the specific group of people that you want to reach with your marketing. That means your marketing collateral—from your email copy to your tagline to your brand story—should appeal to this group of people.
So for this step, take a look at all of your information—your customer interviews, your social following, your website visitors, and your competition’s comparable audiences. Then identify the gaps that you definitely don’t serve.
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5. Set your parameters
That’s why it’s essential to find your target audience—and start using it right away. So in this guide, we’ll give you all the information and the steps you need to do just that.
In addition to the audiences your competitors are targeting, you want to know which of those audiences is actively engaging with its content. Duve into its social following to similarly identify the overlap and the difference. For a step-by-step process, check out our guide to competitive analysis on search and social.
- Are you a pet store that doesn’t stock reptile tanks? Your target audience does not include iguana owners.
- Are you selling boozy milkshakes? You’re not trying to target anyone under 21, even if that might be hard to tell in your images.
- Can you only serve US customers? Then your target audience is not anyone operating outside of those bounds.
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Creating your target audience profile
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- Location
- Age
- Gender identification
- Job title
- Industry
- Education level
- Household income
- Interests
- Hobbies
- Platform usage
- First-time urban dog owner
- College senior without a career plan
- Trained chef working outside the industry
Your target audience profile will include specifics that are relevant to your brand, too. Here are some examples of target audience profiles:
Notice above how I said “this marketing”? That’s right. You could have a different set of marketing campaigns targeted at, say, families with a dog, or owners of multiple dogs, or even people who foster rescue dogs. In fact, HubSpot found that most marketers create content for multiple audiences, with three target audiences being the most common.
Target audience examples
TruGreen, a Tennessee-based company, targets new customers in Boston with this Google Ad and the accompanying discount.
Nike target audience
The voice in the video is young and impassioned. The imagery isn’t highly produced. Instead, it looks almost like a great iPhone video taken in the moment. This is clearly targeted to an audience of younger adults seeking authentic, spontaneous experiences when they’re traveling. And it works.
Starbucks target audience
For example, let’s say your product is dog gear—harnesses, bowls, leashes, toys. Your target market in this case is people with dogs. In order to reach your target market, you might have user-generated content in your social ads featuring happy customers, a newsletter with top dog stories of the week, a blog on pet care, and whitepapers for first-time pet owners. Your branding is sleek, modern, and minimal. Your target audience for this marketing campaign isn’t just pet owners; it’s young Millennials or Gen Zers who have their first dog.
Plus, it’s a great time to ask where your customers are spending their time and getting advice. Is it certain Instagram influencers, industry newsletters, or trusted company blogs? These customer insights are great data points to have, because you can prioritize these channels for your marketing.
Your customers are the people who are using your product or service, so clearly, the positioning of your offering, the solution you presented, your marketing, or a combination of these worked. That’s why this is the perfect place to start.
When looking at Nike vs Under Armour, we can see that while the target market for both brands is people who wear sport and athleisure wear, there are several key differences in their target audiences. Nike is a higher-end brand whose marketing targets influential individuals in society and people up to 55 years old. Under Armour, on the other hand, is not for high-end earners, has a mostly male audience, and targets the 18-25 Gen Z demographic.
Define your target audience—and use it
