We conducted research at the end of 2018, to understand more about the marketing challenges faced by small businesses in the Thames Valley. We had a great response and there was an overwhelming message, the key challenges small businesses faced was that they needed to find more clients. In fact over 90% of respondents said that this was their biggest challenge.
So of course we wanted to help. The starting point (we believe) for any successful marketing campaign is to understand what you wish to achieve, but then to decide who you are going to speak to, you need to define your ideal client (also called target audience, persona, avatar, etc). When speaking to our clients they often say “Why do I need to limit my target audience? I want as much business as possible.” When you define your ideal client it is never at the exclusion of others, but more about enabling you to be focused and provide a product or service that your clients want.
The benefits to defining your ideal client are: that you can solve their problems by providing them with goods or services they want; you can be more focused and efficient choosing targeted media, selecting imagery, sharing relevant content or writing in the right tone of voice; and help you achieve results faster. For example if you wished to connect with a Mum and family audience, you would probably select Facebook or Instagram as your social media focus of choice, depending upon their age and demographic
So now that we understand why we need to define our target audience, how do we go about doing that? Well it is not as easy as it might seem, but we wanted to share our top 3 things to think about:
- Think about their demographic, are they male/ female, age, lifestyle demographic eg: have a family, single or part of a couple.
- What media do they read? Consider both the online and offline environments.
- What is the biggest challenge you solve for them?
The first step in understanding your ideal client is to visualise them, once you have a clear idea in your mind about who they are, you then need to verify that, ideally by conducting some research to validate your understanding.
In summary, it is critical to define your target audience to generate successful marketing activity and in an ever changing digital world be conscious in how you need to move and evolve your marketing.
If you are a small business and would like so help to define who your target audience is, why not join our dynamic half day workshop on Wednesday 13 March. Click here to find out more details or to book.
Sources:
- http://fabrikbrands.com/target-audience-definition/
- https://www.crazyegg.com/blog/target-audience/
