Regardless of the type of business you’re running, it’s important to figure out who your target audience is, as well as what makes them tick.
Why is this the case? If you want to be successful, you’ll need to tailor and market your products and services to meet the needs of your specific consumers, which requires understanding as much as possible about them.
In this article, we unpack all you need to know about target audiences and walk you through how to identify your ideal customers.
Ready? Let’s jump right in!
What’s a target audience? How big or small should it be?
First and foremost, a target audience is defined as a group of consumers characterized by behavior and specific demographics.
In layman’s terms, it’s a bunch of folks who act the same way and fall within the same demographics (they’re similar in terms of ages, locations, etc.).
Now, you might be wondering—how big or small can a target audience be?
Well, there’s no clear-cut answer to that; it really depends on your company.
For example, if you’re starting a brand selling beard products, then your target audience will be pretty niche—you can only sell to bearded people.
However, if you’re starting a running shoe brand, your target audience might be men and women between the ages of 25-45, who are interested in running or exercise. Obviously, in this case, you’re targeting a larger audience.
What are customer segments? How do you use them?
Continuing with the running shoe brand example: When you have different demographics of people within your target audience, you can categorize each group of people into a segment.
If you’re wondering how you should categorize or segment your audience, there are a few obvious ways to do it. For example, you can segment by age, location, or gender.
| Target audience (segmented by gender) |
| Segment 1 | Segment 2 |
| Men, ages 25-45, interested in running | Women, ages 25-45, interested in running |
However, that’s not the only way to go about it. You can also segment by interests, subcultures, and more.
| Target audience (segmented by interest) |
| Segment 1 | Segment 2 |
| Men and women, ages 25-45, interested in marathons | Men and women, ages 25-45, interested in short-distance running |
In order to identify meaningful segments, you’ll need to segment your customers based on the products they’re likely to purchase.
For example, if you’re selling stationery, it doesn’t make sense to segment by gender. Both men and women can and do use the same stationery—we don’t sell different types of stationery for men vs women.
However, if you’re selling running shoes, the sizing and fit is obviously different between men and women. Because men and women do purchase different shoes, it therefore makes sense to segment by gender here.
The same goes for marathons vs short-distance running—these are completely different activities, and the type of shoe you’ll need for each type of activity differs as well.
What makes sense, then, in this specific example is to narrow down the segments even further:
| Target audience (segmented by gender & interest) |
| Segment 1 | Segment 2 | Segment 3 | Segment 4 |
| Men and women, ages 25-45, interested in marathons | Men, ages 25-45, interested in short-distance running | Women, ages 25-45, interested in marathons | Women, ages 25-45, interested in short-distance running |
This way, you can customize your communications (emails, push notifications, etc.) to each segment. This lets you recommend more relevant products to them, and sell to them more effectively.
How to identify your target audience
With some products or services, it’s easy to identify your target audience. Take beard products or running shoes, for example.
What about less straightforward cases? For example, say you’re starting a wellness subscription box company. How do you figure out who your target audience is?
Here are a few methods to keep in mind:
- Conduct market research and read up on trends
- Study your competitors
- Study your existing customers
Method 1: Look at market research and trends
Market research sounds difficult and intimidating, but it doesn’t have to be.
In many cases, it’s as simple as Googling [your product or service] + “market research.” There’s a ton of research and data out there—you just have to search for it.
Now, sometimes the research will directly tell you who your target audience is. For example, this research on subscription box users states that subscribers are more likely to be 25 to 44 years old, and have incomes from $50,000 to $100,000.
In other cases, however, it’s up to you to interpret the findings. For instance, the same article states that the median number of subscriptions an active subscriber holds is two. What that means is that you should be targeting people who are already subscribing to other businesses, because it’s more likely that they’ll be willing to pay for another subscription (as compared to someone who has zero subscriptions).
Method 2: Study your competitors
On top of market research, you should also be researching and studying your competitors.
Look at their websites, their blog posts, their social media, and try to figure out who they’re targeting and how they’re speaking to them.
This is dependent on the company and industry, but you can sometimes get a good sense of how they segment their customers based on how their website is structured.
For example, say you’re in the supplements industry, and your competitor’s website has a menu that says Shop by solution:
Shop by solution
- For sleep
- For stress
- For immunity
- For pain
Here, it’s pretty obvious that they have four distinct segments in their target audience, and that they’re catering to these four segments.
Method 3: Study your existing customers
Most articles or guides on identifying your target audience will tell you to study your existing customers.
Basically, you look at who already buys your product or service, and learn more about their interests, the social media that they use, their pain points, etc.
Now, keep in mind that this method may not be wholly accurate—just because someone is an existing customer, it doesn’t mean that they fall within your ideal target audience. This is especially true if you’re a new startup, or you’ve just launched your brand recently.
Here’s an example: You just launched your subscription box, and you’re offering your box at a discounted price for the first month. Because of the affordability, you’ve attracted several college students who then went on to become your first subscribers.
In your first month of business, the college students form the majority of your customers—does that mean that they’re your target audience?
Not necessarily. You’d still be better off targeting an older crowd (say, 25 and above) who have more purchasing power. But here’s the tricky part—you’d never know this if you were identifying your target audience solely by analyzing your existing customers.
With this in mind, here’s what we recommend:
- Study your existing customers, but always corroborate with other research (including methods 1 and 2). If your findings don’t align, do more research!
- Study your existing customer only when you’ve reached a certain scale. If you have, say, 200 customers, the law of large numbers will kick in—there’s a higher chance that whatever findings you’ll arrive at are representative of the actual situation.
A final word on identifying your target audience
It really boils down to your product or service—for some businesses, identifying your target audience can be done in 2 seconds flat; for others, it requires a lot more research.
If you fall in the latter category, our advice is to be as thorough as possible! Yes, it’s tedious to trawl through all the research available online and keep tabs on your competitors, but this is a crucial part of market research.
Think of your target audience—whether that’s a target audience in marketing or advertising, target audience analysis is important as a building block for your business. Once you’ve identified the right target audience, it paves the way for everything to come. You’ll be able to reach out to them and market to them more effectively, and this will translate into more sales and revenue for you.
