Making A Business A Brand: finding your target audience

Building a successful brand begins with crafting a solid foundation. Once you’ve identified your business's why and core messaging, you’re ready to zoom out an inch and interpret who your brand is trying to reach. This step in your brand-building process will mean identifying your target audience! 

What is a target audience? 

Your target audience is a specific demographic most likely to use your business's services or products. Your audience will share similar characteristics, including their interests, struggles, income, and more. 

With this in mind, your target audience will also depend on your business's industry, product/service type, and price range.  

How to find your target audience

To begin searching for your target audience, start by asking yourself a series of questions to identify your brand’s value proposition. What problems does your brand solve? How does your business add value or improve the lives of others? Who are your competitors; what do they do well? What are their weak points? What sets you apart from your competitors? 

Once you understand where your business adds unique value, begin building a framework for who benefits most from your brand. From here, you can dig deeper and create detailed profiles of your target audience. Start by creating an avatar for who your ideal consumer is. You’ll want to include notes about their education, job title, personality, income, pain points, spending patterns, and more! 

Learning from your competitors is another way to understand and study your target audience. Observe who engages with your competitor's content through their social media pages, online reviews, and more. Are there any high-value groups that your competitors are overlooking? Are your competitors linked to any past controversies? If so, where was the fault in their messaging, and how can your brand fill the gap? 

Another great way to identify your brand's target audience is by analysing your existing customer base. Pay attention to those currently engaging with and purchasing from your business! Viewing the analytics of your social media or website pages will help you gain insight into your existing customer base. You can also take note of the people leaving specific comments and likes on your social pages. This is a great way to ensure you’re not overlooking other identities in your target audience. 

Why your target audience matters

Taking the initiative to identify your brand’s target audience will help strengthen your understanding of potential consumers and open the door to new and prosperous opportunities. Identifying a target audience in alignment with your brand’s core values can help to improve messaging within your social media marketing, accurately targeted ads and promotional campaigns, and build a loyal brand following. 

It’s also important to note that nailing down your target audience can be an ever-changing process! Revisiting who your brand targets every now and then will help determine if your current audience is in tune with your company values and whether or not people are missing from your target demographic. 

Next steps you can take 

After identifying your target audience, it’s time to start speaking and connecting with them. That’s where we come in! Our digital marketing services at Daly Media can help identify and build effective branding and social strategies to help you reach your target audience. 

Let us help you craft custom copywriting, graphics, web design, and social strategies tailored to your target audience and brand identity. Get in touch with us today to learn more about our services and start a free, no-obligation chat!