How To Define And Find The Right Audience For Your Business.

The fastest way to take your business through a nose dive is to assume you are in business to serve everyone.

When marketing a product or a service, the biggest mistake we can make is to say that our offer is for everyone. It is like shooting without aiming. 

An offer is always aimed at a very small group that forms your target audience. If you want to successfully develop your business, you will need to define your ideal client in as much detail as possible.

To achieve that, you will have to ask yourself the right questions.

WHAT TYPE OF CLIENTS DO YOU WANT TO SERVE?

The first step is to determine the type of clientele you want to reach. To do this, you have to ask yourself who is your offer for? Is your business primarily aimed at:

• Companies (B2B)
• Consumers (B2C)
• Employees (B2E)
• Media (B2P)
• People (P2P)

WHAT ARE THE CHARACTERISTICS OF YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE?

Once you have globally defined your target customers, you will have to define them more precisely by listing their characteristics as much as possible. 

Of course, the type of characteristics you will have to define naturally depends on the sector you are going to invest in. For example, the characteristics of businesses will be different from those of consumers.

If your business is B2B (a business that offers its services to other businesses), you can detail your target audience by defining:

• The sector of activity (communication, events, online commerce, etc.)
• The number of employees (less than 10 employees, between 10 and 50, more than 100, etc.)
• The size of the company (VSE, SME, TGE)
• Turnover (35K per year, between 50 and 75K per year, etc.)
• Legal status (sole proprietorship, company, association, etc.)

If your business is of the B2C type (a business that offers a product to consumers), then you can focus on the characteristics of the type

• Age (18-35 years old, teens, young adults, parents, etc.)
• Gender (male, female)
• School-level (secondary, DEC, BAC, etc.)
• Profession,
• Income (high, medium, low)
• Marital status (married, divorced, common-law, etc.)
• Household composition (number of children, collocations, etc.)

WHAT IS THE LIFESTYLE OF YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE?

Then you have to try to get to know your market more in-depth to better understand them. This will allow your company to cleverly adapt its offer, its speech, and its marketing strategy. Here is some information that could help you get to know the customers you hope to reach:

• B2B: What are their equipment, their budget reserved for […], who is the person to contact, who makes the decisions, etc.
• B2C: what are their habits, their hobbies, their type of dwelling, household equipment, car, etc.

The questions also adapt to the offer you make. However, no information is unnecessary. Even the smallest detail can make all the difference between you and your competitor.

WHAT ARE YOUR TARGET CUSTOMERS LOOKING FOR?

Your company will offer a specific product or service to a defined clientele for a specific purpose: To meet a need. It is, therefore, necessary to highlight this need that your company promises to fill with its commercial offer. Do you want:

• Satisfy the basic needs of your target customers? (eat, sleep, clean, transport)
• Provide a solution to a specific problem (how to promote your business, how to reduce your bills, how to develop your knowledge)
• Improve the well-being of your target customers? (improve comfort, reduce effort, automate recurring tasks, etc.)

WHAT IS THE PURCHASING MODE OF YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE?

To promote transactions, it is necessary to define their mode of purchase to as much as possible the reasons that could make you lose a sale. For this, it is relevant to know for example:

• Who makes the final decision (man, woman, marketing manager, etc.)
• What is the average budget (between $ 200 and $ 300, etc.)
• Where do they buy (online, in-store, at a reseller, etc.)
• What is their payment method (cash, credit card, debit, etc.)
• What is the purchase period? (summer, fixed period, evening, etc.)
• What type of buyer are they? (thoughtful, spontaneous, ask for advice)
• What motivates them to buy (quality, value, price, proximity, etc.)

WHERE IS YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE LOCATED?

It’s great to know who your target audience is, but you still have to know where to look for them. Are the customers you are targeting

• Local,
• Regional,
• National,
• or International?

In addition, your strategy may be different depending on the location, as words, expression, connotation, speech, etc., can have a completely different meaning from place to place. It is therefore important to know the specificities of the target market and adapt to the place where you want to operate.

WHAT DO YOUR TARGET CLIENTS REPRESENT?

Among the population present in your sector of activity, what percentage would be potentially interested in your offer? If the target population is 1000 individuals and 200 of them have the typical characteristics that suggest they will be attracted to your offer, then your target customer represents 20% of the overall market. It will also help you know if the market share is financially attractive.

SUMMARIZE IT ALL IN A FEW LINES

Once you have established all the characteristics of your target customers in detail, it will then be possible for you to present them quickly and simply in a few lines. It could be something like this, for example:

My target clientele is made up of sole proprietorships (self-employed workers), partnerships that are starting up, or individuals who wish to start a business very soon. She is between 25 and 35 years old, she is located mainly in Lagos, she is comfortable with the internet and new technologies. My target customers like to read and cultivate themselves by reading books, magazines, or articles on the net. She often uses a search engine like Google to find specific information. What she mainly wants to find is good entrepreneurial advice such as:

• How to start a business in the best possible conditions?
• What are the pitfalls to avoid when starting a business?
• What are the marketing strategies that work?
• etc.

To put it simply, my target customers want to develop their entrepreneurial knowledge to be able to develop a profitable business. 

IN CONCLUSION

Defining your target customers is the basis of your marketing strategy. By knowing perfectly who you are talking to, you will be able to make the right decisions at the right time, know how to communicate, you will optimize your sales and above all, you will increase the development potential of your business. 

Also, correctly targeting your ideal type of customer sometimes helps to find the ideal name for your business. But the most important tip I can give you is to start by targeting the smallest and most precise customer base possible (the niche market) and expand as you reach your goals. And once your clientele is well defined,

Would you like to have more customers?

Then reach out to us here today, let’s help you map out the right plan for your business.