Whether you’re a small business owner or you work for a large corporation, getting to know your target audience is super important.Why?Well, back in the good old days, businesses survived largely due to the power of 'word of mouth'.And not much has changed today. With the advancement of technology, it is easier than ever to spread the word on a business you like...or don't like!So for all business, but especially small business, positive word of mouth is critical in acquiring new customers.
The first step is to understand who your audience is. Once you have identified your audience, you will need to figure out what message you want your audience to know about your brand?The better you understand your audience, the better you will be able to communicate with them. Therefore getting to know your audience like you would a friend will always be a good move for your business as a whole.Of course, once we have made this new 'friend', we must nurture that relationship if we want them to stick around!So how do we get to know our audience to ensure they become that all-important new friend?
Demographics are the basic information facts about your audience. They include data points like age, sex, income, occupation, family life cycle, family size, religion, race, education, generation, nationality and social class. By knowing these facts, you can start tailoring your message to your audience and their lifestyle preferences.
Psychography literally means the study of a person’s psyche. Psychographics combine demographics and psychology to understand audiences on a more personal level. By using psychographics, businesses can understand the personality traits, lifestyle or values of their audience.So, by matching personality traits, such as innovativeness along with key demographics like age, income and generation of the audience we can start to generate a really strong profile of customers.
Behavioural goes beyond psychographics and clues the business in on how the audience actually reacts to their products. Behavioural aspects cover the audience knowledge of, attitude toward and use of or response to a product. This can help the business identify the audience's needs and what benefits they seek from a product.Determining the use of the product can help find out who uses the product, who makes the purchase decision, how frequently the product is bought and on what occasion. Most importantly, looking at the audience's behaviour can help a business know where their customers stand among those who are aware of the product, interested in it, desire it, or intend to buy it.
Of course, big data has to be on this list. It is one of the major factors which helps a business know their audience. It is specifically helpful in gathering information on the demographics of the audience as well as their personality traits or lifestyle.It can also help in understanding the audience’ response to a product and the simple user journey. For example, by analysing the clicks on your website, it is possible to tell how the user searches for the information, makes the purchase decision and how often returns to purchase the product another time. There is definitely a reason why businesses seek data on their audience, especially when so many of them are going digital or starting digitally.
With half the population on social networking sites and with access to the internet regularly, it is becoming essential for businesses to make use of all the social networking platforms and connect with their audience. To know your audience closely, nothing’s more important than listening to them. For this reason, every business must keep an eye out for comments, feedback and reviews on their products.Not only must businesses keep track of these but also respond to them. Listening and communicating with your audience will make them feel heard and part of a community they want to interact with. When people seek products or services they personally connect with, they want to interact with the brand and participate in its activities.The best part about becoming friends with your audience is that by gaining one loyal customer, you easily reach the hundreds of other people they engage with daily.From here the process of getting to know a new audience and making new friends begins again.
