Every website owner should have a good idea of their site’s target audience. A target audience should be clearly defined and should have a fairly narrow scope.
Examples of What Not To Do
- My target audience is “Everybody”
- My target audience is simply “Anyone who wants my product/services”
It is important to recognize that you cannot be all things to all people.
Once you find and define your niche, you will be much better off. One way to begin to narrow your focus is to think of what your target has in common.
By answering these questions, you should be able to narrow down your audience. For example, a much better target audience description would be “young, urban marketing professionals primarily in their late 20s, who are invested in achieving work-life balance, participating in online forums, and sharing insights on marketing strategies to excel in their careers.”
A common strategy is to give each audience a “persona”. To further this example, we have the following persona.
Meet Jane, a 28-year-old female marketing professional living in New York City, who spends her days managing social media campaigns, worries about achieving the right work-life balance, celebrates her team’s successes, and actively engages in online marketing forums to exchange valuable insights with other like-minded professionals.
Jane and her friends have similar pain points, they have similar passions, and they can be seen doing similar things and going to similar places. They live in an urban environment, spend a lot of time with social media during the day, and may belong to a marketing association where she engages with other professionals.
While not absolutely necessary, the creation of such a persona for your target audience can help you get inside the shoes and the minds of your target audience. Some additional questions that may help with the creation of your persona…
For more information on creating a persona, check out this blog post by our friends at Elegant Themes.