The internet has opened new markets to businesses, especially those involved in e-commerce. However, this has also brought about particular challenges. First, you need to know to whom you are selling. Otherwise, your marketing efforts will not amount to much.

 

But how do you define your target market? Well, one way is to create a target audience profile, also known as a buyer persona. This lets you identify your customers’ needs, what products they are searching for, and what content and messages will best resonate with them.

 

What is a target audience profile?

Before we understand what a target audience profile is, let’s first define a target audience. This is a group of potential customers who display similar buying behavior and product interest characteristics.

 

A target market profile lists their characteristics and demographics such as age, gender, or location. Of course, you can also dive deeper than this, such as their likes, dislikes, buying habits, and so much more.

 

By creating a target market profile, you can better develop marketing campaigns that are best suited to their needs. Instead of just marketing your products or services wildly to just anyone, you can create content and promotions that best appeals to the target market.

 

This will help boost conversions, making your marketing efforts feel less stressful and allowing you to reach the people you want to work with.

 

How to profile your target market

Contrary to what most people think, creating a target market profile is quite simple. Let’s go over the steps:

 

Start by broadly describing your customers

The first step is to start with a broad classification of your customers. Ask yourself who your customers are and why they may be interested in your products. Are your perfect customers young? Or older? Do they have their own business? Or are your products or services geared toward people with children?

 

What problems does your product solve for your customers? For example, do you provide a product or service that helps a business grow, like our marketing firm? Or do they provide a way for a working person to have a less stressful day? Be accurate in your description and nail down who your customers are.

 

You also need to know where you are marketing your product or service. Is it local to your zip code? Or to a general area? Or national? Some companies even market internationally – which has its own set of rules and regulations.

 

Having understood this, you now have an idea of who your customers are and where they may be located. This gives you the beginning form of your customer and who they are.

 

Another way to gather information is to use customer reviews. Look at your competitors and see what the reviews say about your industry as a whole. If you have reviews, see what your customers are saying about you directly.

 

You may also use the data that you’ve collected from previous buying behaviors. For example, who has your customer base primarily been? Have you been primarily B2B or B2C? How did your existing customers find out about your product or service? All this information is key to producing your buyer persona.

 

Define demographics

So you’ve broadly classified your audience as those who would find your products helpful and valuable. The next step now becomes identifying their demographics. This will make it much easier for you to pinpoint exactly what they need.

 

Some demographics such as gender-based on the type of products that you sell are easy to identify. For instance, if you sell hair products, your customers are more likely to be women; however, self-care has been gaining traction with men too, so you can’t discredit the other side. Make sure you consider the changes in trends that have been happening in the last year or so.

 

Other demographics to look out for are age of the customer, preferred social sites, preferred technology, etc. For example, if you are looking for younger clients, you probably want to focus more on mobile and Instagram. Older clientele typically resides on Facebook and use tablets or computers. Millennials tend to move across channels. And don’t forget everyone’s favorite (at least right now) TikTok, where you will find a variety of customers.

 

You will require a bit more research and data evaluation to find out demographics such as location, preferred social media sites, and age, but don’t discredit or skip this step. 

 

Identify their needs and pain points

Having defined their demographics, it is now time to take a look at your product or service. Put yourself in their shoes like you were buying the products.

 

What about the product do you like for you to choose to solve a particular problem? Really spell it out, and provide multiple options for each product or service. Sometimes maybe one product only works for one demographic, but another may serve multiple demographics.

 

Also, what about the product don’t you like and would discourage you from buying it again? Really look at this side of the fence too. You could also look at bad reviews and see where improvements could be made or where maybe your product or service failed to meet the needs of a specific customer. This doesn’t mean that the product or service is bad, but just maybe not for that specific customer.

 

Find out the pain points that customers buying such a product are experiencing and how they would wish to solve the problem. You can even ask your friends and family for their feedback.

 

With this information, you can not only market your products correctly, but you can also develop and make changes to the product to solve the customer’s problems best.

 

How will customers reach you?

At this point, you have made the necessary steps to identify your target market and create products that customers will need. However, it will all account for nothing if you have a great product yet customers do not know about it.

 

So how do you help customers find you and your products easily? Do you do online marketing on the specific platforms your customers exist on? Do you use content marketing for inbound leads and sales? Some companies require their customers to meet first or fill out a form for a quote. Some companies have an e-commerce setup so customers can just purchase their products or services. 

 

Make sure to market to your persona where they are and how they like to be marketed to best. This will enable you to find them and grab their attention. 

 

Conclusion

It is critical to profile your target markets. In this way, you can create tailored marketing campaigns that appeal to the needs of the customers. Without identifying your target market, promotions and ads are likely to fall on deaf ears.