One of the most difficult aspects of any marketing department is figuring out who is their target audience and how best to reach them. Marketers may think they know, but at the end of the day, the consumers who buy the product or service may be vastly different from what the business was anticipating or working toward targeting. This can also lead to issues of wasted marketing dollars by attempting to sell to a target audience who generally isn’t interested in this particular product or service. So how exactly can you increase the probability of correctly identifying your target audience and market to them?
Define how you can solve a problem
Every company knows what their specific product or service does or offers but what they may take less time to consider is exactly the types of problems that this product or service solves for consumers. There are plenty of unresolved issues that once identified can help determine who the product or service is best directed toward. Is this an issue that predominantly affects older people or younger people? Is it an issue that affects on the wealthy or people of all socioeconomic backgrounds? These questions and many more should be thoroughly investigated which can help give the business an inside look at their target audience.
Connect with existing customers
Social media has begun to act as one of the most important means by which a business comes to know their clientele. Businesses can see what customers are saying about the product and even gain some insight into the other types of products that the consumer likes. Social media acts as a form of customer survey that businesses do not even have to administer.
Utilize customer feedback
Customer feedback is highly useful especially when it is constructive criticism that helps you improve your company. This improvement is because it shows the business where they can grow and what changes could be made that encourage someone to buy the product again. The key to analyzing the feedback of customers is to have the proper mechanism to evaluate it. First, the feedback can be sorted into similar categories. If one category has an overwhelming number of comments about it, then odds are this should be the first place the business should look to make changes. These changes help to further define the specific wants and needs of the target audience.