Your business’ success starts with your audience. If you’re not reaching the right people, you won’t meet your maximum potential. So, where do you begin?
Start with an audience profile — or, as we at MKR like to call it, an audience segment.
What is an audience segment?
It’s pretty simple. An audience segment is a collection of psychographics, demographics, and third-party data that sections out your consumers by things they have in common.
These segments show you who you’re reaching, who is engaging with your business, and how much of your segment makes up the market. And then, you can take that data and create unique media that resonates with your audience.
What’s the benefit of having an audience segment?
Having an audience segment helps you develop a more direct line of communication with your audience. It helps you understand what your current customers need and what may be lacking from your current strategy. With the collection of vital audience information, you get an inside look at what is and isn’t working for your company. This ultimately leads to better media planning and performance.
And better performance means more potential for penetrating new markets, staying competitive, and more promotion opportunities.
What you need
Before you can start segmenting your audience by similarities, there are some key components you need to succeed.
- Baseline demographics – look at age, gender, and income.
- Communication information – how does your audience prefer to chat (via email, text message, social media, etc.)?
- Pain point – what’s driving your audience to seek your product?
- Target goals – what does your audience want to gain from your product or service?
- Buying habits – whether your audience makes impulsive or thoughtful purchases; what time of year they make large purchases; what drives them to purchase?
It’s time to create
Now that you’ve thought about your audience, it’s time to create your audience segment. This process can be broken down into five parts.
- Describe your ideal customers – Before you dive into the data analysis, ask yourself the question, “What does my ideal customer look like?” You’ll want to think about who’s using your product or service and why. What is their attitude toward your company or product? And why would they choose you over your competitor? Customer reviews may help you answer these questions. You can use your established audience to grow it further.
- Use data to determine your target audience – Looking at the demographics you’ve collected, determine the most prominent overlaps. Is it age? Or gender? Maybe it’s location. These data points help you understand who you should consider when developing a media strategy.
- Identify and relieve the pain point – One of the key factors to successful marketing is understanding the needs of your audience. Put yourself in their shoes. How does your product or service help solve their daily problems? What worries do they have that may prevent them from buying your product? What are their needs? Answering these questions and using empathy to strategize will help you better present your products in an enticing manner.
- Put all the data together – You’ve been thinking long and hard about all of this data. Now, take your findings and place them together. Using demographics, psychographics, and pain points, you can make a segment that outlines what your audience needs and put it to use.
- Be flexible – Market trends change. Businesses grow. Personal needs expand. So, when it comes to your audience segment, be sure you’re consistently reviewing data, noting changes, and implementing any changes necessary — whether it’s outdated social media preferences or a shift in demographic. Reworking audience segments to stay current will help you achieve desired results.
Put it to use
Now that you’ve gathered your information and made a stellar audience segment, it’s time to start marketing. But how?
Start by making an assumption — consider pain points. Then, choose a channel and test your media. Validate whether or not this test worked. And finally, iterate the next test using feedback.
And, if you’re looking for more information — like better ways to market your brand or tips on media strategy — we here at MKR would love to help you out.