14 Questions To Help You Define Your Target  Audience

Once you are set to find potential customers for your product or service online one of the challenges you will be facing is defining the target audience you want to reach.

You can’t afford to target everyone on the Internet, you will end up reaching people who don’t need what you have to offer, that will result in wasting money, time and efforts.

Defining your target audience takes care of this, having a clearly defined target audience helps you to focus your marketing efforts to a set of people among the over 4 billion people that use the Internet today.

It also helps you understand the personalities and characteristics of your ideal customers. When you understand who your ideal customers are you will be able to communicate with them with the right words and the right tone and this plays an important role in helping you convert them into buying customers.

In this article, I’m going to share with you 14 questions you can answer to help you get clear about whom your product or service are meant for.

If you’re ready to learn about your target audience let get started.

Now, I must state this, being able to effectively define your target audience will totally depend on the knowledge you have about your product or service.

If you are trying to market your own products or services I’m pretty much sure you have all the knowledge you need to perform this exercise. 

But if you are promoting other people’s products or services, then you need to do proper research to learn about the core features and benefits of the product or service you want to sell to a target audience.

This is important because you are not just trying to define a set of audience, you are defining a set of people that your product or service is going to help solve their problems or fulfil their desires.

So your target audience is going to be in relationship with the product or service you offer.

Having said that, let’s dive into some of the questions you should answer to get clear about your target audience.

1. What is the age or age range of my ideal customers?

Every platform online has its own policy on age restrictions. However, most platforms allow from the age of 16 years and above on their platform.

This is totally going to depend on the product or service you offer, you may not have to reach the entire age range on any platform you decide to find your potential customers on.

For example, if you have a product that is meant for elderly people, you don’t want to waste your resources, time and energy trying to reach teenagers. Now, you see why defining the age or age range of your ideal customers is important.

2. What is the gender of my ideal customers? 

Which gender is your product meant to serve, male, female or both?

If you are selling a wig you don’t want to be telling men why they should buy your wig, unless you want them to buy for their spouse.

3. What is the relationship status of my ideal customers?

Relationship status determines decision making to an extent.

There are some products or services that clearly defining whether your ideal customers are single, engaged, married, divorced or are in any other type of relationship status will help you narrow down your audience to the right set of people. 

4. Where do my ideal customers live?

It’s necessary to define the location of your target audience: the continent, country, region, state, cities or address of the people you want to reach are living in.

5. What is the educational background of my ideal customers?

Defining the educational background of your target audience can do a lot with your marketing communications.

You don’t want to be speaking big grammars to people who will appreciate simple words.

6. What is the profession of my ideal customers?

Defining the profession of your target audience can help you dig into the minds of your target audience.

People of specific professions are known to act, look and even think in the same manner, this can help when it comes to communicating your offer to your target audience.

7. How much is my ideal customer earnings?

This is also necessary especially if you are selling a high priced product or service.

You don’t want to be marketing a high priced product to a low-income earner, the results will be frustration.

8. What are the goals of my ideal customer?

If you can tie your target audience goal to your product or service this becomes more powerful.

Like, what are the goals my ideal customers have that my product or service can help them fulfil?

9. What are the desires of my ideal customers?

The reason why your ideal customers might be buying from you is probably because they want to fulfil a desire.

If you can spell out the desire your target audience has that your product or service can help them fulfil this will help you communicate more effectively to them.

10. What are the challenges my ideal customers are having?

Maybe your ideal customers are not hoping to fulfil a need, maybe they are having challenges that your product or service can help them solve.

What could those challenges be?

11. What are my ideal customers’ hobbies?

It’s easy to think that you don’t need to worry about your ideal customers’ hobbies.

But this can help you understand who your target audience really are, but more importantly, you will be able to relate with them on a level that is most understandable to them.

Things like hobbies can improve how you reach your target audience on most platforms online. 

12. What are my ideal customers’ fears as regards to my offer?

There are many things that can be going on in the mind of your ideal customers when they are considering buying from you online, things like trust, competence, support, etc.

If you can relate with the fears your ideal customers might have while dealing with your business you will be able to address them effectively in your marketing messages.

13. Where do my ideal customers socialize online?

There are many platforms online, but that doesn’t mean you have to take your customer hunt to all the platforms online.

Be specific about the platform your ideal customers are likely to spend time on, this might imply that you research to learn the nature of most online platforms.

But being specific about this will give you the idea of the right platform to go find your customers online.

14. Which public figures do my ideal customers follow online?

These aspects of your ideal customers might seem irrelevant to you but when it comes to marketing online these are important information that can make a big difference in your marketing results.

Information like who your ideal customers follow online can help you filter your targeting audience.

Conclusion

Answering all these questions will you will have a clear understanding about your target audience.

With the right understanding of your target audience you can rightly invest your time, energy and resources on marketing activities to help you reach the right people for what you have to offer.

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