How To Define Your Target Audience, And Create Buyer Persona-Recipe For Higher ROI

“For better performance of your content marketing and ad campaign, you must understand the concept of the target audience, and buyer personas. You should know how to reach out and pursue them to achieve higher ROI.“

Actually, you need to do it first, very quickly, and effectively.

Almost the entire world is online! But, your product or service is not for the entire world.

So, ask yourself

1. Who will buy or use my product/service?

2. How will they know about me?

You are going to invest some money and time in the digital marketing for your business. And, you need to find as many customers as possible to achieve a higher ROI for sustainable growth.

To find more customers, you must understand everything about a target audience.

And with a right target audience, you will attract more users, generate more leads, and higher sales.

Don’t target everyone, first define them, your target audience

WHAT IS A TARGET AUDIENCE IN MARKETING?

The first question will give you a basic answer to this question.

A target audience is who will possibly buy your product or is interested in your service. It is a group of potential customers with particular behaviors, characteristics and demographics like age, gender, employment, income, location, social engagement, personal and professional goals etc.

They are called target audience because you will target them with an extensive marketing campaign that compel them to take actions desired by you.

BNEFITS IT BRINGS

• It will give your campaign a right direction, and help you to adopt a right approach.
• Improves your decision making process as you define right audience for your business.
• This audience is likely to react fairly to your marketing efforts.
• You come to know what type of messages, content and ads to create for a better connectivity with them.
• It will also help you to develop a cost-effective but sustainable marketing campaign.
• Especially, ad campaigns which are not available without any cost, you can save your money by defining your audience and just target them.
• It saves a lot of your time as you don’t need to create different campaigns for different audiences or markets.
• It also enables you to sustain your current customers and improve their buying experience to attract more new consumers.
• The more customers you attract, the more leads will be generated. Eventually gives you an improved ROI.
• It is a very effective tool to generate qualified leads, which makes your campaign quite productive.
• You can improve your social media marketing performance, and boost your online presence as this process is best suitable for the social media ad campaigns.
• What is more important with defining an audience is that you get some very important information or data which will be helpful for your business development also.

But for that, you have to target them with relevant content and ads that resonate with them.

And, that’s why I told you to ask the second question to yourself.

How are you going to find out who is your target audience, and how are you going to target them to let them know about you?

Actually, you should ask a lot of questions to get on the right track. Yes, you have to think from a customer’s point of view, with an empathetic state of mind.

For example, you are running an event organizing business. And, you have created an online presence on multiple social media and other digital platforms.

Now, who will be interested in your services? That’s the question you should first ask to yourself.

Because, you have to find a relevant audience to target. A house wife or college student is definitely not your target user. So, they are not going to be targeted.

Businesses across various industries usually organize different events, so they can be your potential customers.

Families will need your services for wedding and other functions.

But, there are other necessary services and products will be required for an event, and you can target those service providers also to increase traffic to your business.

But, it doesn’t mean that your target audience is those who will use your products only.

For a business who sells kids footwear doesn’t only need to target kids, but their parents also. Because, they are going to make the buying decision and spend money for their kids’ shoes.

So, defining a right target market for your target audience is also very essential. A target market is similar to an audience, but has a little larger landscape.

And as you deep dive into defining your audience, you will learn how to create a buyer persona. It is also very important to get better idea of your potential customers.

And, it will help you to define a broader relevant target audience.

“For any type of marketing research, like defining your target audience, relevant data is the most useful tool.”

TYPES OF TARGET AUDIENCE

You can classify it in many ways as per your research or your business requirements and product.

But, basically a target audience can be of following types.

1. DEMOGRAPHICS – It includes age, gender, location, income, education.Bby defining them with these attributes, you can target them with suitable content and ads. For example, you can create a separate campaign for millennial and for females as they both are your possible customers. But, creating personalized content will connect better with an appropriate audience. In this way you will be able to reach out to both of them using content that resonate with them. Same way, you can use different elements of demography to define different types of audience. Based upon your product, you might need to create a location based audience, income based or education. You might need to use multiple factors to create a single audience category also. Don’t forget to ask relevant questions to get the best idea of which type of users could be your potential customers.
2. INTERESTS – Specific interests, hobbies and behaviors pursue users to buy products. All you need to do is find out which are related to your business. People with what kind of interests would buy your product? Asking questions by putting yourself in customer’s place will give you right answers on type of the audience. If you are selling painting and drawing tools and materials, apart from school kids, people with interests or hobbies in such arts are also your potential buyers. And they can be from any demographics like, age, gender or location. You must know the art of pursuing them with perfect messages.
3. INTENT – What is buying intention? It may be associated with people’s daily requirements, business needs, healthcare needs, educational requirements etc. You should know that your products can satisfy which types of needs, and it will be easy for you to define your audience based upon that characteristic. If you are selling electrical appliances, your target audience will be very broad based upon their intent. Because, such type of products will be used not only in homes, but in offices, educational institutions, workplaces etc. So, what is important? Asking relevant questions.
4. There can be many more sub-types like, cultures, lifestyle, influences etc. You can explore more possibilities to get a clear picture to aid your audience defining process.

WHAT IS A BUYER PERSONA?

When you are trying to find customers, you will learn about a lot of things about people, like their choices, requirements, interests and their demographic information.

So, using these information, you can create a buyer’s profile to get an idea of your potential customer. A buyer persona is not a real customer, but an imaginary profile of your possible user.

How do you create a buyer persona?

By asking questions, again!

Do a lot of research on audience types, ask many questions to yourself regarding their needs, preferences, behaviors, interests, intents etc. And create a customer’s profile which could be similar to your potential buyer.

Create appropriate messages and ads that resonate with, and attract that buyer. Create a base for conversation with that buyer and tone of your messages.

Why do you need to create a persona?

Well, finding right audience is not an easy task. A buyer persona gives you a better idea about them.

So, you can create content to attract them. And, that content is likely to reach out to your possible audience.

And those users are likely to move into your marketing funnel.

When you create a buyer persona, you will also come to know how to define your target audience.

For example, you are a fashion designer, and your customer can be females aged from 16 to 65. So, how do you know who will buy your products?

This is where a buyer persona will help you to define your potential customer.

“Learn to develop an empathy towards people to create a deep understanding of your target audience.”

HOW TO DEFINE TARGET AUDIENCE OR CREATE A BUYER PERSONA?

1. Use Social Media – It is the most used platform all over the world. So, your potential users are most probably present there. These platforms has many tools to do research and find audiences. You can conduct surveys and polls about people’s preferences, and their answers will give you a good insight on who might be interested in your product. You can see likes and shares for particular posts or ads, and get an idea of their choices. You can also keep an eye on your peer businesses, and see where they are putting all their efforts. Because, every businesses know the significance of social media, and use it for marketing purpose.
2. Ask relevant questions to yourself – You need to ask, who will be the beneficiaries of your service? Who will be interested in or already using your product? What do people need or like to buy? Create a buyer persona with these answers and using demographic data of your audience. The most important question to ask is what difficulties or problems they face, and how useful your product/service can be to eliminate their pain points. Now, you can ask people this question and their answers will give you an idea of whether they are your target audience or not.
3. Research on which online platforms they use to find their products and information – Almost 90% people use online search to find answers to their problems, to find products, and search useful information. You can try to get insights on those online platforms. Use techniques like keywords research, social media analytics to get the answers. Keywords are very useful, as you can research on which keywords related to your business or product, people are using for online search. They are your potential customers and you need to target them. You can also use insights like what kind of product reviews and recommendations they use to make a buying decision. Use those reviews to find your target audience.
4. Use your current customers’ data – Your existing consumers and their experience of using your product will give you a better idea of your future customers. Ask their feedbacks, and try to get more information about themselves. This information can be used to create a more accurate buyer persona to design a targeted marketing campaign.

You can use a lot of analytical and marketing automation tools to find your target audience. These tools are backed by technology and a huge relevant data, so that you can create a more accurate buyer persona or define your target audience. The competition is very tough as far as online business and marketing is concerned, so using such tools will make your marketing process painless and more effective.

After you have successfully defined your target audience, create personalized content aimed towards them. Try to get them in the marketing funnel. Use qualified leads to retarget, convert them into customers, and start a long lasting relationship with them by providing best values with your business and service.

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