ChicExecs Senior VP of PR and Digital Marketing, Kristen Wessel, shares her tips on how to identify a business’s target audience on Forbes blog. Enjoy this excerpt from the article below.
If you want a real competitive edge, it’s time to learn who your customers are and what they need. It’s time to build a stronger business—one with your customers as the foundation. If you don’t know who your customers are, follow these six tips to identify your business’s target audience.
You need a lot of customer data to help you form a more complete understanding of your customers. Businesses often fall into the trap of assuming that all customer data is high quality, and that isn’t true. For example, if you buy customer data from third-party list companies, there’s no telling how accurate that information really is.
Did you know that your business could have well over five different audiences? Instead of treating all of your customers the same, you should segment your audience into different groups based on shopper demographics, buying history or any other data point.
Your business doesn’t operate in a vacuum, and that means you need to be aware of what your competitors are doing. Look at your competitors’ websites and social media to see who they’re selling to.
If you want to identify and understand your target audience, you don’t have to beat around the bush: You can speak to shoppers directly. The easiest way to do this at scale is to create a short survey that you email to shoppers after they place an order.
You have a lot of customer data flowing into your business. It’s impossible to manage this well manually, which is why many businesses rely on customer relationship management (CRM) platforms. CRMs store customer data and make it easier for you to parse through that information. If you need help identifying audiences and trends in your data, a CRM platform can help speed up the process.
Customer data is like marketing gold, but it isn’t very useful if you don’t put it into practice. That’s why so many businesses create customer personas. These are fictional profiles that your internal sales and marketing teams use to relate to your target audience. Read through these personas any time you create marketing campaigns or sales collateral to ensure it’s a fit for your target audience.
