How to make a portrait of the target audience

15-20 years ago, the concept of a target audience was not at all among our entrepreneurs. There were suppliers, there was a desire to create an e-commerce service and on this ended the company's positioning in the market. Today, everything is different: many competitors have appeared, marketplaces are opening up and the “just offer a product” approach is no longer effective.

Before opening a store, a modern entrepreneur should:

• determine the level of competition in the market;

• create a portrait of the client (target audience);

• determine the positioning of the company;

• develop a marketing strategy;

• create a unique selling proposition;

• do branding.

Determine the competition is not difficult, today there are a lot of services. But how to determine the target audience, because of this will build a strategy, positioning and unique selling proposition.

Target audience is

The target audience is your customers who are most interested in the product or service. The target audience are users who may be interested in your product. Also, TA can be defined as people who are satisfied with your product, because it solves their problems and pains.

What criteria need to be considered to draw a portrait of the client. So, we define:

• Client age

• Gender

• Region of residence

• In what area does the client work

• What is the position, income level

• Marital status, are there any children

• Needs, hobbies, topics of interest, lifestyle

• Preferred social networks

There is also such a thing as psychological signs of the target audience. Let's go over them a bit:

1. Type of character: ambitiousness, sense of humor, sociability, isolation

2. Type of consumer behavior: only online purchases, only offline purchases, purchases based on promotional offers, time-limited purchases, etc.

3. User reaction to product price

4. External factors that influence the purchase

The last 4 points help determine values, which is very important for creating a unique selling proposition. Learn to work with Facebook. The social network is very intuitive in the matter of collecting information: cooperating with Google, it collects requests and then offers ads only to the client who is interested in your product (see the article “Pixel Facebook: how to create and configure”).

What is the detailed portrait of the client for?

A detailed portrait of the client is needed to understand in what style you need to create a design for packaging the product, arrange online or offline store, for whom and when to launch an advertising campaign. Also, a detailed portrait of the target audience will help determine which products can still be connected to the main sales.

For example, your client is a top manager who takes care of his appearance, goes to the gym and drives his own car. He is interested in digital technology and loves self-improvement. You sell mobile phones or computer equipment. The task is to offer an up-to-date phone that will quickly deal with multiple business processes, maintain high-speed Internet and keep battery power for a long time. A smart watch with a pedometer, calorie and heart rate counter and other personal achievement features can be offered to the phone. For the phone, offer a magnetic holder for a car, a wireless charger, or a stylish e-book reader. Only 1 target customer may be interested in 4-5 of your products. Hopefully, you have already received an answer to your question: “Do you really need to spend time identifying the target audience?”

Let's look at another example when you are making a product. Your target audience is girls aged 25-28 who want to eat right and look good. When developing a product packaging, you must decide on the design. He should personify a healthy lifestyle, attractive appearance, well-being. Most often, designers choose green, white, yellow color, which is associated with health, freshness, novelty. Depending on the client’s field of activity, product lines can be developed, for example: for a young mother who is puzzled by the problem of quickly returning to the previous forms. Or a business lady, who spends the whole day in conditions of negotiations and phone calls, but she wants to eat right.

A detailed portrait of the customer is also important for the design of an online store, a list of recommended products that the customer will see along with the main product (see “Recommended Products”). Also, depending on the target audience, you can determine which social networks to focus on.

For B2B sales, the description of the target audience will be completely different.

B2B target audience

For a B2B audience, the data should be completely different:

• Field of activity;

• Location by region;

• Internal or external market at the client;

• Seasonality of the product or service;

• Price policy;

• The concept and principles of the company;

• List of persons who make decisions about cooperation.

Where to collect information about your target audience

1. Conduct a marketing analysis on social networks. See which audience is interested in the product (based on your competitors). If possible, create several groups of CA.

2. Hire marketers, it will be fast and professional.

3. Sign up for online or offline training for writing a portrait of your target audience.

4. Collaborate with online social survey companies.

5. Connect your own knowledge and experience.

How to determine the target audience based on the finished product?

Conduct a thorough analysis of the product.

First you need to carefully examine your product with the marketing side. Identify several distinctive characteristics that distinguish the product from competitors, for example:

• Properties and qualities;

• Special composition;

• Price;

• Packaging;

• Product Effect

Gather all possible buyers of your product.

First, identify all possible consumers of the product. To do this, answer the following questions about your client:

1. What does the client look like, his portrait (gender, age, marital status, etc.)

2. Psychographic features (type of character, values, principles, beliefs, what factors influence the purchase)

3. Lifestyle, hobbies, hobbies, interests

4. How does the buyer relate to the price of the product

5. Where does he usually buy similar products?

6. From what sources does the client know about your product: message boards, TV or radio advertising, social networks, contextual advertising, e-mail newsletters, etc.

Divide the target audience into segments

After it turned out to identify all possible consumers of the product, divide your target audience into segments. For example, your buyers can be women aged from 18 to 25 years old with different lifestyles, different hobbies and principles, professional activities. Break this target group into groups:

• women 18-25 years old housewives;

• women 18-25 years old careerists;

• women aged 18–25 years old athletes leading a correct lifestyle;

• women 18-25 years old, who are interested in recreation outside the city;

• women 18-25 years old vegans, etc.

Your target audience can be divided into several dozen segments. This must be done in order to make as unique as possible, a narrowly focused sales proposal, so that it falls exactly on target. On the basis of the same segmentation is triggered mailing.

Develop an advertising and marketing campaign plan

Next you need to make a list of your actions that will be directed to advertising the product.

Conduct a marketing analysis

After each event held, you need to evaluate its result. Analyze what the coverage was, how many people were interested in your offer, how many made the purchase or made the order. Depending on this data, each advertising campaign must be edited.

Here you already know how to determine the target audience of your product. And this is already 50% of the successful completion of the advertising campaign.