Know Your Target Audience
My kids were flipping through one of our favorite family magazines when all of sudden I heard giggles. You know the giggles that mean they are doing something they shouldn’t be. I come around the corner to see what they are doing and I see an advertisement that is clearly not appropriate for children. It wasn’t horrible, it certainly could have been worse, but let’s just say I didn’t enjoy my 8 year-olds running around the house saying the word they saw in the ad for the rest of the afternoon. It got me thinking. Doesn’t this magazine realize their target audience? Why would an ad like this be in a magazine that is read by children?
A magazine, a brick and mortar store, an e-commerce store…we really have a lot in common. We need to write our content, merchandise our store and design our websites with our users in mind. Our target audience is women, we get a few men here and there but we most certainly have a strong female audience. Our web design is made with that in mind. We try to write our content for this audience.
I have been looking around at other websites and wonder if they realize what is missing. Find your target audience and ask people you know that are in that demographic to test out the site. Get honest feedback and apply it to your site. Just because you like the colors Blue and Yellow doesn’t mean your customers will. I think it is hard as business owners to let go of some of our original ideas. I have always loved the color blue, when our web designer added pink to our design and logo I felt it was too flashy. We tested it with some women and they loved it! I had to let go of what I felt the site needed and let my customers tell me what they wanted.
We are currently working on a new social media plan. Again we have to come at this in two ways. What our customers want from us in social media and what we think we need. Currently we are doing our research and hope to roll out a better plan soon. I’m sure we will make some mistakes along the way but I hope to not make the same lapse in judgment as the magazine.
5 Comments
JennColgan says:
Thanks for the post. The one thing I struggle with is the research part - how exactly do I find out what my customers want to see? Not sure how to even get started...
Kara English says:
Hi Jenn - have you thought of sending out a survey to your customers? Also test, test, test. Try different things and look over your analytics. This should help give you some insight to what is working and what isn't. I hope that helps !
Elizabeth Ball says:
I invited 10 customers, 3 regular, 3 new and 4 who had only signed up to the newsletter to attend two afternoon teas in return for giving me their comments and suggestions. There they looked at my proposed packaging for a product I was developing and gave me their input. What it is now is so very different to how it began - and so much better! I am really grateful for their suggestions as it helped me see it in a new perspective. I will repeat the process again for sure!
StrikeHawk eCommerce, Inc. says:
Elizabeth, google analytics allows you to setup goals and funnels. Have a professional assist you with setting up segmentation, goals and funnels and the ability to track revenue. You can also setup event filters on anchor links, banners, newsletters.
iPhone Application Development says:
The best way to reach to your target audience is shouting around with your product name. A good example like someone stands alongside a road and shout with the product name. Actually he doesn’t know where his audience but people who actually need that product definitely come there. I know this is happen offline but just modify this formula and try to apply it online sure you will get the result. You have to apply few considerations here.
Connect with us