Marketing is a vital part of your business plan. Without it, it will not matter how great your products or services are, because nobody will know they exist. Of course, marketing is also not the easiest task. It takes a lot of research, dedication, and sheer staff hours to work effectively. But if you haven’t defined your target audience, all that hard work and effort could be wasted.
Here we discuss five reasons why this is true.
1. Better Focus for Your Customer Journey
Brands today increasingly recognize the importance of customer outreach and market research. The best way to get to know your customer base is by speaking with them directly. Understanding your customer’s intentions, dispositions, and rationale for taking action will help your best structure your customer journey as a marketer.
2. It Gives You Clarity
Sometimes it can be hard to make marketing feel personal, but it’s important that it does not just for your audience, but for the marketer, too. Having a defined target audience can help you understand who you are talking to, what’s going on in their lives, and how your company can help them. This can direct the actions of your marketing, sales, and customer service teams.
3. It Helps Make Decisions
The decisions a marketer makes should always be towards the benefit of the company. This is done by figuring out what best benefits the customer, who will then help fuel your company’s success.
Sometimes the smallest decisions can make a big impact. If your marketing team must choose between a Twitter account and an Instagram one, for example, it helps to know which social platform is being used by the largest portion of your target audience.
4. Reduces Marketing Spending
Once you know who your target audience is you can better direct your advertisements and other marketing efforts towards them. This is significantly more cost-efficient and produces a much higher return on investment (ROI) than if you were to try targeting everyone. Unless you have a lot of money at your disposal and a huge marketing team, you can’t target everyone anyways.
5. It Makes the Most Sense
Knowing your target audience allows you to know who needs your product. Seniors wouldn’t be interested in junior’s clothes, for example, and unmarried single men with no children in their lives wouldn’t be interested in the latest toddler toys. While your marketing may draw in a great number of people, they will not become customers. Brands that know their target customer base and deliver them relevant products, services, and experiences are the most likely to win their business.
The five reasons listed above explain why it is important for companies to define their target audience. Not only is it more cost effective, but it is also a lot less hassle on the marketer. It would be impossible to adequately target everyone, anyways, unless you had an unlimited about of funds and resources.