How to Find Your Target Market and Your IDEAL Customer

How can you get to know your ‘ideal customer’ or, to put it simply, identify who is the kind of person who would genuinely purchase your service or product? This is an important question to nail down, and must be done before you spend time implementing your digital marketing and social media strategy. 

When it comes to defining your target market, a good place to start is with the people already buying from you, following you, and interacting with your posts. And then you need to understand how your product or service impacts their lives; Does it solve their challenges? Address specific pain points? Help them meet their goals?

 “If you try to sell to everyone, you’ll end up selling to no-one.” – Jeff Bezos 

Why it’s Important to Know Your Target Audience

Taking a scatter gun approach to your Marketing, with no real idea of who your ideal customer is, will not give you a return on your effort or time nor will it set you apart from your competition. It’s important to remember and fully understand that not everyone will be interested in what you offer. This is a positive thing, as it allows you to find your niche and cater completely to qualified leads who are highly likely to purchase from you. 

For example, as a Marketing agency, we appeal to the decision makers within a business. Our niche is Marketing and HR. We don’t spend our time posting content on our social media about anything other than that.

It’s as simple as this: When you understand your customer, you can tailor your marketing content to appeal to them. Therefore, you will see better and faster results for less money and effort. 

It is no longer enough to segment and target your audience based on basic information such as gender, age and location (which traditional marketing uses heavily) because there are a lot more deciding factors which now contribute towards a consumer’s final decision. 

Understanding the personalities and lifestyle of who follows you and who will buy into you is one of the most crucial steps in developing a successful social media strategy.

Creating Your Audience Persona(s)

Most businesses will have more than one audience persona/profile because, naturally, most businesses grow to appeal to different audiences within their niche. If you are the beginning stages of your business, or even if you are a well established business, start by creating your audience persona(s).
For example, at Business Success Marketing we have 3 personas:

• Medium Business Owners
• Macro/large Business Owners 
• Marketing Teams who need training / external audits

Using the above examples as a guide, ask yourself ‘What do my customer personas look like?’We have come across many brands who have strong products or services but unfortunately are unable to answer the below questions even after a long time in business! Your answers to the questions below will give you a roadmap and general idea of who your target audience is.

• What gender(s) are most likely to be interested in your product or service? 
• What kind of personality does your business have? Ethical, luxury, professional?
• What age bracket do they sit within? 
• What are they likely to spend their disposable income on?
• What social media platforms are they most active on? and at what times?
• What do they value when buying products? 
• What are their pain points? 
• Who are the closest competitors they could turn to instead? 

What Next?

When you understand your ideal customer you can then meet them where they are. For example, if they are on TikTok, you need to be sharing valuable information and content on TikTok. If they spend more time on Twitter, that’s where your brand needs to be visible and a part of the conversation. Note: each platform requires a slightly different approach.

The better you understand your target market, the more you’ll be able to focus your marketing efforts and reach the audience most likely to convert into customers. Your target market may change as your business grows, which is why we suggest reviewing your target audience / personas on a regular basis (every 6 – 12 months). 

We begin every Discovery Session with a new client by identifying exactly who their ideal customers are. From here, we can put forward a solid marketing strategy that aligns with the goals of their business. When we have a clearly defined audience, we can speak directly to their personality, needs and frustrations.