As we’ve previously discussed, knowing your target audience transforms your best ideas into an engaging campaign. When you know what your audience cares about, you will create content that they relate to. More importantly, your audience will remember your message, even when they aren’t viewing your content. That, of course, is the ultimate goal!
How do you learn about your audience? There are many ways to approach this, and it takes a combination of methods to understand your audience well. To know everything you need to know, let’s review a few of our favorite methods!
What do you need to know?
As a reminder, your target audience are the people who benefit most from your product or service. You want your campaign to resonate the most with this group. The more you know about them, the better you can achieve that goal. Basic information about a target audience includes age, gender, occupation, and interests.
You need to know the main characteristics of your buyer or user because that is what influences their decisions. Therefore, your campaign should focus on highlighting how choosing your product or service is the right decision for your audience.
When you learn these key facts about your audience, you can make informed decisions about each aspect of your campaign. From style, length, to concept, your campaign will feel like a personalized experience for your audience. Who doesn’t love that?
Market Research
Understanding customer needs is the key to making the most of your market research. Customer needs are the problems people are trying to solve with specific products or services. If you know what your customer needs, you’ll know what to say in your campaign. So, where do you start?
If you want to get feedback directly from your customers, you can conduct interviews, host focus groups, or send out surveys. Interviews and focus groups require more time and money, but they allow you to engage with a select group of your target audience. On the other hand, surveys allow you to reach a much wider audience quickly and without as much cost. These can all be completed in-person or online, so a deciding factor could be the money and time you have available.
There are also plenty of ways to gather audience information without talking to them directly. Knowing trends goes a long way in creating your campaign. You can use websites like Ahrefs or Google Trends to learn what people are searching for. Be sure to filter by timeframes to get the exact information you want!
The internet is also the perfect resource for competitive audits. Your campaign will not exist in a vacuum. Take advantage of the content competitors produce to make yours even better! Review the marketing strategies of companies that have similar services or products to yours. Where do their campaigns succeed? Where do their methods fall short?
You can improve your campaign by filling in the gaps left by your competitors. Additionally, you’ll be able to stand out from the competition because you know what you’re competing against. It’s a win-win!
Analytics
Your audience tells you who they are every time they interact with your product or service. Review any existing data you have from customers to understand both what they like about your product and what they have questions about. If you have a website, you can also utilize website analytics to get demographic information about common users. This will paint a clear picture of the people you want to reach with your campaign.
Social media analytics also reveal important information about your target audience. While different platforms will have different tools for viewing your social media metrics, every engagement trend you find will bolster your creative strategy. Whether you’re learning audience insights on Instagram or Facebook, this data will reflect the type of content your audience engages with most. You can use this to reinforce any choices you make about your campaign!
Buyer Personas
Now it’s time to combine everything you learned about your audience. No matter what your campaign covers, you will benefit from creating buyer or user personas. Personas are like characters, but they are developed based on your target audience. Each characteristic of theirs aligns with what you learned about your target audience.
When you create a persona, make sure to include any problems or pain points they have. Additionally, consider any short or long-term goals they have. How can your product or service solve the buyer’s problem? How can your product or service make the buyer’s life better?
By answering these questions, you can customize your campaign messaging to what your audience wants. Moreover, it emphasizes the personalized experience each audience member will have when viewing your campaign. Your audience will feel confident in your product, which means they will stay engaged throughout the campaign and take action!
Campaign Format
Knowing your audience also allows you to know which method will reach them successfully. Younger audiences often respond better to short-form content on social media. On the other hand, returning customers may be more likely to engage with email campaigns, as they’re already invested in your brand.
The market research you conducted will provide plenty of insight to make the right decision. While there is no single format that will meet every single audience member, you will be able to match the preference of your target audience.
Apply Your Knowledge
Just like in school, the real test is applying what you’ve learned. After putting the effort into knowing your audience, you’re ready to make the best creative decisions for your campaign. Don’t forget to outline the key points in your creative brief, so your team and stakeholders have confidence in every choice throughout the process!
You now have the tools to tailor your work to your audience. Be proud of your efforts. Your campaign is on track to be effective and engaging, and we can’t wait to see it!
