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Knowing your target audience is a key aspect for any business.

After all, you want to maximize your sales figures.

And to do that, you need to know who you are selling to.

While you probably already have some familiarity with your target audience, having a full understanding of your potential customers – such as their age range, interests and current trends – is needed to optimize your marketing efforts.

To help with this predicament, I will show you a two-step process that will help decode your target audience and get those product sales on the up.

But first of all, a bit of preparation is needed.

Organizing Your Research

Now whenever you are doing any form of research, making sure you’re organized is vital.

Below I have created a basic template where you can keep track of your findings. Keep in mind that it’s only an example, and you can alter this template and make it more in-depth and/or in a different format if you wish. But try and keep it simple – the last thing you want is to become confused by your own research.

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Finding Your Target Audience Worksheet

1. What is the Gender Split for Your Target Audience?

Male (%) =

Female (%) =

2. What is the Average Age of Your Target Audience?

Average Age =

3. What Interests, Topics & Trends Relate to this Target Audience? What Are They Interested in? What Content Do They Like Consuming?

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Obviously the first two questions you’re answering in the above example are self-explanatory.

The third question is arguably the most important, especially when it comes to zoning in on potential customers. It is also the question that requires the most research, but the following two points will help in that regard…

1. Media Kits

Good for:
+ Finding up-to-date statistics
+ A general guide to the interests of your target audience

Media kits are promotional materials that are created for the purpose of distributing to relevant members of the media. While these media kits are intended for publicity, they can often contain a lot of applicable information that is useable for likeminded businesses.

Finding media kits, at least for widespread subjects, is a rather simple affair.

Firstly, simply go to Google. Then from there, search for your subject of choice and add the words ‘media kit’ to the end. It pretty much is as simple as that. I’m using the topic of paleo as an example, which can be seen below:

As you can see, Paleo Magazine has us covered when it comes to media kits.

Then it is a simple case of clicking on the most relevant link for your business. In this case, it would be the ‘2015 Paleo Media Kit’, because it is the most up-to-date media kit available.

Even from this ‘snapshot info’ section you can see a lot of useful facts and figures. Going back to our research template, this media kit shows us those oh-so-important demographic numbers. Along with that, there is plenty of information relating to interests and trends with paleo.

If you cannot find a media kit for your niche, try and broaden your scope of search. There are so many media kits out there that you should find something of use – no matter what your business covers.

Also, if possible, don’t stick with just the one media kit. Aggregating a wide variety of information from numerous sources is, of course, the best way to paint the full picture about your audience. Going with simply one source of information can leave you missing out on certain info. And in business, you want to know everything about your target audience.

This segues nicely to the next step in the process…

2. Facebook Audience Insights

Good for:
+ Getting substantial insight into a target market
+ Learning about the behavior of potential local customers
+ Not limited by a niche

Facebook Audience Insights is a free-to-use tool on Facebook that is a dream for any marketer. Information that can be learnt from using Audience Insights includes purchase behavior, geography of customers, demographics and much more.

To get started with this step, login to Audience Insights by clicking here (the process of accessing Audience Insights has changed slightly since recording the video but the layout and navigation of Audience Insights is still the same).

Now the fun begins.

Once you are on the Audience Insights page, you will see all the tools at your disposal to seek out your target audience.

Yet since I already have the information about gender split and age demographic via the media kits (for the paleo example), I’ll take this opportunity to further delve into the interests, topics and trends side of things. But if your business is in a niche market where media kits are hard to come by, feel free to get your gender split/demographic info here.

After entering paleo (paleontology) into the ‘Interests’ section, you can see that the demographic figures above – namely the gender split and age range – coincide with those found in the paleo-related media kit. That’s a good sign!

But we’ve got that information already, so let’s move on to finding some more trends and so on.

Under the ‘(New Audience)’ section, click the ‘Page Likes’ button. From here, you can browse the Facebook pages that are both relevant to your business and liked by your target market.

Facebook pages that have a high affinity should be the ones you are looking at. This means that your target market is engaging with and loving the content on such pages. The type of content you could be using for your own gain.

Going back to the paleo example, I have gone on ‘The Paleo Mom’ Facebook page. From here, I have found a hefty quantity of content ideas to use – including the one seen below:

Coconut milk is the theme of this blog post as you can see. Now if this had little in the way of comments, shares and likes, I’d be passing on including this topic in my research. But thanks to its popularity (with 416 likes and 213 shares respectively), it can be marked down as a subject that will greatly interest my target audience.

Also, don’t ignore comments – especially those that have plenty of likes – that appear under any popular posts on Facebook. They can be a haven for additional info that can add substance to a topic you’re researching.

So from my two minutes of browsing these high converting Facebook pages, I found the following valuable info relating to paleo:

• Artificial sweeteners (negative effects, research, natural sweeteners)
• Artificial foods vs real foods
• Coconut milk (extracting natural coconut milk, additive free coconut milk brands)

Now I know that these topics don’t mean much to you, but I’m sure you can see the potential. From a quick search I have discovered three subjects that will not only be of interest to the paleo crowd, but it will also create a serious buzz with that very audience.

So with your own search, go on those Facebook pages that have high relevance/affinity relating to your topic of choice, browse what is generating likes and discussion, and add those to your research.

Once you’ve got enough information collected, you can then really begin to zone in on content specific to your business that will hopefully engage, become viral and ultimately convert more of your audience than ever before.

The post Use This Two-Step Process to Decode Your Target Audience appeared first on Alph Media Express.