5 Ways to Better Reach Your Target Audience

5 Ways to Better Reach Your Target Audience

Reaching your target audience is essential for business growth. First impressions matter, and if you can’t engage with your audience, you will lose their trust and loyalty. But you can’t reach them if you haven’t defined who they are.  Identifying the right audience will save you the expense and energy of taking a scattergun approach. If your marketing strategy isn’t delivering the results you’re striving for; we have some tips to reach your ideal customers better.

How to Reach Your Target Audience

You can’t please everyone all of the time. Yet many businesses make the common mistake of targeting too large an audience in the hope that casting a wide net will get better results. Taking a one-size-fits-all approach results in making compromises and diluting your message, which ultimately weakens your brand.

Therefore, the first step is to define your audience. You need to really understand your potential (and existing) customers and what makes them tick. Think about why they would want your service or product and how you can make their lives easier.

Begin by building a buyer persona – a description that represents your ideal customer. A buyer persona is based on market research and data about your existing customers. It covers their interests, needs and challenges, as well as information about their demographics, personalities, shopping habits and preferred media platforms. Once you are crystal clear on exactly who your ideal customer is, you can create a targeted marketing strategy that keeps them coming back to your brand.

1. Make use of email marketing
   Email marketing is one of the most successful ways to connect with your target audience. It’s not surprising when you consider that 99% of email users check their inbox every day. Of course, a strategy is essential. You should view email marketing as a way to build relationships rather than solely to drive sales. Keep emails regular, engaging and valuable, otherwise, your subscribers will lose interest. Emails can be targeted to specific interests and personalised according to purchase and browsing history.As the most adaptable, targeted and cost-effective method of communication, emails should be used throughout the customer journey – before and after they make a purchase. For example, a follow-up email thanking them for their purchase can also provide tips on how to maintain their new product. This shows that you care about your customers’ experiences and makes them feel good about your brand.

   Email and SMS marketing tools can optimise your messaging and automate everything from welcome emails to abandoned cart emails. The latter reminds customers of the items in their cart (with optional images and a discount) to prompt them to return and complete their purchase. Email marketing tools are great at reaching your target audience and generating conversions because they create personalised communication based on customer behaviour. They can even experiment with multiple email variations to determine the best messaging for different segments of your audience.

2. Create relevant content
   Creating useful content is one of the top ways to get the attention of your target audience. You can create content for every stage of the customer journey, from raising awareness of your brand to after-sales content, which helps the customer get the most from your product or service. Your content should be laser-focused on your niche and provide authoritative, relevant information that your audience needs and wants.

   But how do you find out what type of information your customers want? You can start by using the autocomplete and “related searches” suggestions on Google’s search results pages. Keyword tools like AnswerThePublic, Ahrefs and SEMrush are helpful in generating topic ideas for attracting organic traffic to your website. You can also mine customer feedback to address common questions and problems. For industry-wide content, monitor social media and see what hashtags are trending. Timely content has more of a chance to be noticed, clicked and shared. You can present the content in a variety of formats, including videos, articles, brochures, newsletters, case studies and social media posts.

3. Use social media
   So many of our everyday interactions have shifted to social media that it’s an ideal way to engage with your target audience in real-time. The main reasons people follow brands on social media is to learn about new products, stay up to date on company news, learn about special deals and be entertained. You need to research your audience to see which social media platform(s) they use the most and focus on where they are the most active.

   Make sure to keep your brand voice consistent, but adapt your message for each platform or you’ll seem spammy. Starbucks is famous for successfully interacting with its social media followers and responding to both positive and negative comments. Engage your target audience by asking questions, creating polls, posting relevant content and liking or resharing customer posts. You can also reach potential customers with paid social ads based on interests, location and demographics.

4. Leverage influencers and partnerships
   Social media is also the domain of influencer marketing. While it isn’t on the same level as celebrity advertising, it has a certain aspirational appeal combined with the trust of a word-of-mouth referral from a friend. Influencers have a direct line to their followers, who either relate or aspire to their lifestyles. Social influencer marketing adds a more targeted element to word-of-mouth advertising because they are specialists in a particular subject.

   Influencers have built communities around their sphere of influence; whether that’s tech, beauty, travel, fashion, parenting or another niche. They have already established trust and credibility, giving them the huge potential to elevate your brand’s image in the minds of their followers – a ready-made audience for your product or service. They can promote your brand with a mere mention, but many will partner for sponsored posts, recommendations, reviews, video tutorials, “unboxing” videos and countless other endorsements.

5. Personalise your customer interactions
   Expectations have reached a peak when it comes to the customer experience. According to a report from Epsilon, 80% of customers are more likely to do business with a company that provides a personalised experience. Even within your target audience, each person has individual tastes, needs and experiences. By combining the browsing and purchasing history of your customer, you can determine future buying habits, make recommendations and provide targeted special offers.

Have you considered personalising interactions according to location, age and interests? For example, you can provide special discount coupons for specific stores or invitations to one-off local events, such as new openings or food tasting experiences. There are other ways to make customers feel special, such as birthday emails, which have a 481%  higher transaction rate than regular marketing emails. Brands like Paperchase and Hotel Chocolat offer time-limited birthday “treat yourself” credit and some restaurants will offer free meals, wine and more.

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