We see an astonishing number of people who have thrown themselves head first into marketing their business without identifying who their target audience are. When they do not see results they immediately decide that ‘marketing doesn’t work’ and as such disregard the entire industry as useless. The truth is they are right. Marketing without direction is completely ineffective and an utter waste of time.
Why is knowing your audience important?
Marketing your business is a completely different kettle of fish from anything you will have ever encountered before.
Often people throw seemingly random quotes out whilst trying to inspire entrepreneurs; phrases like ‘shoot for the moon and you’ll end up in the stars’ are a great example of this.
Realistically this doesn’t work (at all) when it comes to marketing. What you will do is scattergun your efforts into space which guess what; is where nothing lives!
So how do you figure out who your target audience is?
Who would benefit from your product or service? You need to know in a manner that is as exacting as you can.
- What sex are they?
- How old are they?
- Where do they live?
- What do they enjoy doing?
- What income bracket are they in?
- Why do they do what they do?
All these questions are a great place to start.
When you are working out whom you are talking to you need to focus on three main areas. Demographic, geographic and psychographic.
Once you have this you can progress onto how you communicate with them. Every audience will of course require a different tone. For example you wouldn’t address a marketing message to an accountancy firm as you would to people who are buying extreme sports products. You will of course get some cross overs but you need to determine how likely and frequent this is.
As businesses start to expand, so can who they appeal to. When it comes to marketing and PR, we are ambitious in growing brand awareness.
Having more people use your service or product from the same demographic is good in some ways, as it allows you to find exactly who your audience is. However, in order to grow and build up a positive reputation, it’s important to think on a wider scale.
In today’s socially conscious world, anyone who considers a wide variety of people are likely to be popular, as consumers are increasingly interested in the ethics of the brands they use.
Here are our tips for broadening your target audience:
1 – Social media marketing
When you know your target audience, it’s likely you’ll tailor your social media accounts to them. Your feed might be Instagram goals to one generation, or your Facebook posts might get a lot of engagement from parents. However, social media marketing is successful because it can reach a lot of people. It allows you to ask questions to find out why people do/don’t use your service and it’s a place that you can easily show you don’t only think about one type of audience, by using a diverse range of images and content.
2 – Think outside the box
Your cleaning product might be aimed at homeowners but think about how you could appeal to students moving to university for the first time. If you’re in the beauty industry, think about how you can be up to date with diversity.
3 – Effective PR
A professional PR agency, like VerriBerri, will build relationships for your business with the right people. We also pride ourselves on reaching audiences that others might not have thought about. Our creative team think of various marketing and PR angles to ensure that businesses have as wide reach as possible.
If you’d like more information about how VerriBerri can help you with your Essex marketing and PR, get in touch today on 01376386850.