How To Score a Marketing Bullseye: What a Target Audience Wants!

Any company that hopes to become successful in the greater economic market will need a dedicated consumer base. These key individuals make up the highest percentage of the sales and will indirectly bring more customers to you through word-of-mouth recommendations – at no cost to you! But to secure these customers long-term, your business must understand exactly what their target audience wants!

As entrepreneur and brand builder Jason Langella has aptly said:

 “If you don’t appreciate your customers, someone else will.”

 If you do not take the time to learn who you intend to sell to or work with, your business will fail to reach them. Customers can tell if you care about them and if you show few indications that you do, they will not stick around to give you their business. More often than not, they are just going to seek out a different company that does.

 So, if you want to make your business as competitive and successful as possible, you have to do what customers secretly want the most!

1. Make your customers feel respected, comfortable, and appreciated
2. Improve their life, their home, or the planet with your goods or services
3. Offer high quality goods or services
4. Be as convenient as possible
5. Offer incentives

Before we get into what customers want from you, let’s first understand why you want to get to know your target audience! 

The Importance of Understanding Your Audience

One of the most important aspects of securing a loyal consumer base is to understand who you are targeting. This includes the demographics of the group: What age are they? Where do they live? What roles do they play – are they students, parents, working professionals? 

It can also include information about their web or spending habits, product preferences, or other desires for services, communication methods (email versus call/text versus mail), or purchasing platforms (payment apps versus through card or check). Recognizing the fundamental similarities in your ideal audience will help you be cognizant of what your business needs to do to become, or remain, successful. 

Profiling customers is absolutely essential as it will tell you what products, services, or information or product they are looking to obtain. A failure to deliver a customer’s ideal product will result in potential customers leaving your business for another company that does offer exactly what they want. 

Keep in mind that the target audience does not always translate directly into the same buyers – toy companies must advertise to kids but also realize that it is the parents making the purchase; engagement ring companies may be marketing to brides, but the buyers are likely going to be their spouses instead. By understanding the spoken and unspoken needs and desires of an audience, your business becomes more competitive and gives you an edge over other similar companies.

What Consumers Want from Your Business

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• Customers will choose the companies that make them feel respected, comfortable, and appreciated! It is very important to develop a human connection with your target audience because not only does it boost their confidence in themselves and in your company, but it makes them feel more safe investing in your business.

  If they feel heard, they know that they will be taken care of rather than taken advantage of! Humanizing your customers builds your trustworthiness and hooks customers for the long haul!

• When people buy a product or invest in a service, typically they expect that this purchase will improve their life, their home, or the planet. They want to know that there is a noticeable benefit for their monetary “sacrifice.”
  Customers like to know that their money is going towards a good cause and that this investment will be returned in the form of a happier, healthier self, a better looking home, a more successful life, or a cleaner planet. Help them by creating or selling genuinely beneficial products that actually fulfill your audience’s needs!
• Product and service quality is huge when it comes to customer satisfaction. People want to know that they are getting only the best. Give them exactly what you advertise at a fair price.

  When buying items, customers want to be certain they are getting their money’s worth out – if the object breaks soon after they receive it, or if the product/service does not do what you claim it is supposed to, your buyers will not be happy and probably will not come back. If you make a mistake, send customers a suitable replacement after their unsatisfactory purchase.

  Warranties are also great to offer with more expensive products, but overall, you should be absolutely sure that your product or service is as good as you say it is.

• Nothing is worse than an annoying experience purchasing something online. Be convenient! Maybe the process to complete the transaction was obnoxiously complicated and the person had to re-enter their information multiple times. Or maybe it was a pain just to locate where the shop was on your website.

  People do not like inconvenience and it can be the difference between staying with your company or leaving for a competitor. Make sure your website is user-friendly! If they do come across issues, be sure your customer service representatives are easily accessible, well-informed, and friendly so they can walk your customers through the problem to a happier experience!

• One thing that can really give your company an edge are incentives. Customers LOVE freebies and promotions that result in saved money. Incentives can be as simple as a coupon. These can be offered to visitors just for signing up for your mailing list or you can offer coupons for completed purchases to incentivize a second sale later on.

  Sending free products are also highly appreciated – particularly if it comes as a surprise! These incentives can also be used to encourage a new purchase – maybe your customer bought a shampoo from you, if you send them a sample of the accompanying conditioner, it is more likely they will buy both products next time!

How Do You Know What YOUR Customer Wants?

Now that we understand what customers, in general, look for from the companies they support and why it is necessary to understand these desires, let’s explore the variety of ways your business can identify your target audience’s specific needs.

1. A great way to understand the habits of your customers is through website analytic tools. Using these tools give website owners the opportunity to evaluate the habits and behaviors of those visiting the site by keeping track of the number of clicks and the time spent on the various website pages. This can tell you if you are losing customers by showing if visitors are actually interacting with your website or if they are just bouncing straight to an alternative source.

   If potential customers aren’t following through during their visit, there may be something wrong with your website itself – to find out more about improving your web presence, check out the post, Creating a Successful Online Business! [make this a link to Anna’s post once the blog is up]

2. You can also learn a lot about what your target audience wants through understanding your competitors. Through keyword research and exploration of your competitor’s methods, you can uncover some of the ways to improve your own targeting tactics.

   How can you improve your own visibility online? Are customers finding you when they search for the products or services you offer? Maybe you missed something – if customers prefer a different company to yours, try to find out what that company does differently that draws buyers to them!

   Are consumers voicing complaints about other companies they have used? How can you respond to those issues with your own company? This can give your intended audience the opportunity to get what they want from you and you may end up drawing people away from your competitors! It’s a win-win-win! You get more customers, you become the more competitive choice, and the consumers are getting exactly what they want!

3. Lastly, another highly effective way to learn more about your target customer base is to ask your audience directly. This can be done successfully a number of ways including discovery calls, online surveys, or through interactions on social media. Just make sure you do not bombard them with endless requests for reviews and surveys – this can become very annoying and turn away potential customers!

   The biggest benefit of communicating with your actual customers is that you will often get very specific and detailed responses which can reveal useful information about how your audience feels. This data can be used to improve your website or business operation and can pinpoint unobvious problems that you may have never even considered yet were still affecting your company’s overall success.

Overall, it is essential for any company to invest in their audience. Success comes from understanding who you are selling to so you can provide the best possible experience and overcome your competitors. Give your consumers what they want, and go for a marketing bullseye!