Understanding the Target Audience is Marketing 101
- Who are we trying to reach?
- What messages will reach them?
- What visual design will resonate with them?
- What action do we want them to take?
As designers, we’ve all heard these questions and consideration of them should be part of our standard design process. As for clients, well some of the junior minded entrepreneurs out there may not clearly understand the importance of identifying and targeting a specific type of person.
Our Target Audience is Everyone Age 0 to 100
You ask your client, “Who is your target audience?” These types of novice entrepreneurs may respond by saying, “Everyone age 0 to 100.” (I’ve been there and a recent coaching student of mine was recently in a conversation like this too.)
You may be tempted to say to the client, “It is really hard to market to everyone.” To which the client would reply, digging in their heals, “Well, our product is for everyone. You need to figure it out.” This conversation won’t get you anywhere.
There is a Better Approach
When your client has a broad audience, help them narrow the audience into three groups. You ask, as you always do, “Who is your target audience?” The client replies, “Everyone age 0 to 100.”
Your new response to this client will be, “That’s great. It is exciting to have such a huge pool of potential customers. When we have a broad target audience it is most successful to break the audience into three categories; primary, secondary, and tertiary audiences.”
You continue, “Of your audience age 0 to 100, who would you say is your primary audience?” This response usually invokes a conversation in which the client will be forced to decide on a more targeted potential customer. “Well, if we had to narrow it down, we would say the primary audience is probably women age 20 to 30.”
You can continue this conversation by helping the client narrow down their audience into secondary and tertiary audiences in the same manner.
The Importance of Knowing the Audience
I’m actually surprised and a little embarrassed at how long I worked as a designer/marketer before I started making conversations about target audience a regular part of my process. Shame on me. Fortunately I saw the light and it upped the game of my agency.
Help your clients understand this simple truth: The tighter the target, the better you market.
