When creating a new product, service, or starting a business overall, one of the main things you should know is who your audience is. You must be able to know who you are selling to in order to tailor that product or service according to your customer's needs. Getting to know your audience means who they are, what their challenges are, what problems do they want solved, and how they'd benefit from your product or service.
Regardless of what position you hold within your team, knowing your audience is essential. Not only will the products or services offered serve a specific purpose, but you'll also have a better understanding of the type of content marketing you should provide. Once you know your audience, everything you do will be more likely to resonate with the people who matter the most to your success, which are your leads and customers.
So how can you get to know your audience better? Check out these 7 simple ways.
1. Review Data and Analytics
Start by analyzing any current data your business has gathered about your customers since it opened. This could include customer reviews or testimonials from people who've had a direct experience with the product or service. This will give you a starting point to work from when learning about your audience on a deeper level.
Then, consider other types of audience-related information you're missing. Perhaps you can create a survey for your audience to get answers to more specific product or service-related questions you may want to ask them. Raw and direct customer experience answers can only help you improve your product or service.
2. Don't Change What's Already Working
When conducting audience research, don't ignore or discard what's currently working for your audience when it comes to products, services, customer service, and marketing strategies. This information is very valuable. It tells you about your audiences' continuous need for your product or service and why they're already enjoying their experience with your business.
As the business grows and your products or services evolve, refer back to these key success points when making a decision that impacts your audience. This will help ensure that your audiences' best interests are put first.
3. Create Buyer Personas
Buyer personas help you understand the needs and wants of your audience and customers. It'll also aid your product or service development and allow you to market to your specific audience more effectively.
With a buyer persona you'll be able to better understand in a number of reasons why your audience needs your products or services, how you can target and convert, and create long-term relationships with your customers. The entire business will also benefit from a buyer persona because it allows the team to stay focused on the target audience.
4. Create Surveys
Conducting surveys on your audience is an effective strategy to get to know your audience on a deeper level. They provide specific answers to questions you have for your audience about your product or service, marketing methods, customer service experience, and more.
Ask your audience both general and specific questions to figure out exactly what they need from you, what do they already enjoy, and what they recommend you can improve on and why. Something to keep in mind is that making your survey anonymous may provide you with true and honest results. This encourages participants to be completely honest since they feel their identity is not being exposed.
5. Be Ahead of the Competition
Keep an eye out on your competitors when it comes to every aspect of your business. This allows you to gain a clear understanding of what your competitors are failing and succeeding in, what they are doing to target the audience you share, and what that audience is and isn't responding to. Doing this will help you determine how to reach out to your audience in an effective manner that's unique to your business and helps you stand out from the competition.
6. Keep Track of Feedback, Comments, and Engagements
Monitoring your audiences' actions and tendencies helps you have a better understating of them overtime. Review any feedback, surveys, forms, comments, and engagements in all your social platforms, website, and blog. This will tell you about any positive or negative experience your audience is having and it'll help you resolve urgent issues immediately, while maintaining the things that are working effectively for your audience.