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Target

What is a target or target audience?

The target or target audience is, in marketing, the consumers whose characteristics and needs make them the most desirable to sell products and services to. They are also often referred to by other names such as: niche market, potential customers, etc.

In other words, the target is the segment of people at whom the sale of a given product or service is aimed. Just as companies evolve, a company’s target does not always have to stay the same; it evolves hand in hand with the market.

1. Advantages of defining the target

The target definition phase is vital for campaigns to be successful. If you are not able to get it right, the campaign can end up a total failure. It doesn’t matter how good your product or service is if you offer it to the wrong target audience. Segmentation is the key to success.

Therefore, let’s list the main advantages of defining the target:

  • It allows you to put the focus of your marketing strategy on a certain segment of the population, so that you can set much more concrete and real objectives.
  • You will avoid wasting both time and money on campaigns aimed at a target audience that is not the right one for your product or service.
  • It builds loyalty and retains customers by establishing longer-term bonds, since offering them what they need in the right way creates a relationship of trust that lasts over time.
  • The better you know your target audience, the better the results of your marketing actions, since you will understand their problems and how to solve them.
  • It allows you to achieve a higher percentage of sales and conversions than if you don’t define the target and try to reach a more general audience.
  • You can focus on the most suitable channels to get in touch with your potential customers and reach them in line with your marketing strategy.

2. How do you define your target?

When it is time to define your target, it is necessary to ask a series of questions about your company and your customer, the answers to which will allow you to successfully define your target audience. The questions can be as many as you wish, but these can be considered as the minimum for

Demographics

The first thing to do is to create a demographic segmentation, for this we have to ask ourselves:

  • Age? Once we know their age, we will be able to define the right tone for marketing actions.
  • Gender? Although the trend is towards inclusive campaigns (avoiding stereotypes), it is still vital to know the specific gender to target campaigns correctly.
  • Family situation? In simple terms, the questions are asked to find out whether we are speaking to married people, single people, with or without children.

Location

Location is of great value when we need to define a target.

  • Where do they live? For both an e-commerce business that sells globally and a local one, it is useful to know this in order to properly create local and global campaigns.

Socio-cultural profile

At this point we go deeper into the demographics of our target, to obtain details that allow a more precise segmentation:

  • Do they study or work? If they are studying, we can ask the question: What is their level of studies? And if they work, for example, what is their job title? That is vital for understanding their purchasing power.
  • Age of their children? If they have children, this information is important for any campaign.
  • Do they have a pet? Important data to discover some of the target’s values.
  • Hobbies? Lifestyle and playing certain sports are vital for any campaign you want to carry out.
  • Do they read regularly? Any data that helps to create a detailed profile is welcome.

Digital profile

This is one of the most important, as it gives us a very precise idea of where we can find them and how they move through the current ecosystem of social media and web services:

  • Social media? Identify which social media platforms they use and the frequency of use. Use of digital devices? This is tied to their age, but knowing whether mobile, tablet or PC is their natural medium is very relevant.
  • Do they buy online? If so, try to obtain data on the places they use to get information before making the purchase: Google? Social media? Blogs?

Needs

The ultimate goal is to satisfy our target, but before that it is necessary to know their needs or problems, to determine whether we can respond to it with our services or products.

  • What are their needs? So we can assess whether we are able to solve them and show them that we can do so through our digital marketing campaigns.
  • What are their dreams and aspirations? The short- and medium-term goals the target sets for itself.

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