Candles or rocket launchers, handmade cards or wallpapers, coffee mugs or espresso machines — no matter how small or big your product or service, it is imperative that you know who you are making it for.

If this has got you saying, “Of course, I know my target audience,” we have a small mental challenge for you. Think of a few things you know about people you’ve built your product for.

If the attributes you are thinking of are mostly made up of facts like their age, gender, profession, income, and where they live, we have to stop your train of thoughts. Why? This simple image will explain.

This may come as a surprise but a large number of business owners and their marketing agencies don’t spend the time getting to know their audience.

Image Credit: Jake Sanders on Twitter

One of the most common things we often hear when we ask business owners about their “target audience” is, “Our audience is everyone.” When you target everyone, you can’t really call that a “target.”

Image Credit: DBarefoot via Creative Commons Under License CC BY-NC 2.0

Ignoring Your Audience Results in Wasted Dollars

Wasted ad spend is a persistent problem in marketing. In fact, it’s a problem that’s been gnawing at marketers since more than a century, when marketing pioneer John Wanamaker famously declared, “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is, I don’t know which half.”

There is a vast amount of data to show that companies are continuing to waste their ad spend. There are a few reasons for this, but the biggest is that brands are failing to create content or ads that their audience will engage with and failing to show them on channels and platforms their audience use.

If brands know their audience as they believe they do, then why are we creating messages and putting them up in places where no one is watching/listening/engaging with them? The answer is bitter, but true: Brands and their agencies have long ignored understanding their audience.

You Cannot Develop New Products or Enhance Existing Products Without Knowing Your Audience

Your audience is one of the best product development partners you can find. If you have only a superficial understanding of them, you will not be able to see how your product should evolve.

For example, one of our clients, Haven Lighting, is a frontrunner in the outdoor landscape lighting industry. They develop their products using knowledge from their audience, often developing new features and products based on customer feedback. It’s no coincidence that the company has grown exponentially since its founding in 2014.

IKEA did this in 2018 with “Co-Create IKEA,” a digital platform that invited customers and fans to develop new products. The brand worked with college students, commuters, and homeowners to create furniture and kitchen items.

Knowing Your Audience Enables You to Create Better Content

Let’s be honest. Media — print or digital — is full of content no one wants to engage with. There are several reasons for this, but one of the biggest is that companies and their agencies aren’t creating for their audience. If you don’t know your audience’s specific pain points or what makes them laugh and cry, your content will fail to engage them. On the other hand, if you know precisely what your audience finds entertaining or informative, you will be able to create content around their needs.

Speak with your audience. Not only will this show you how your product is being received but it will also enable you to understand how you should speak about it.

Qualitative Research

Image Credit: Marc Wathieu Via Creative Commons

Communication is a human pursuit and while today we may have several ways to gather quantitative data about our target audience, few things are as insightful as conversations. If you think your product is geared toward college students, reach out to college students. Speak with them. Not only will this show you how your product is being received but it will also enable you to understand how you should speak about it.

For example, if you are a flashlight company and want to target beginner hikers with your product, using technical jargon to sell your flashlight won’t really work. This may be fine for experienced hikers who understand terms like “lumens”, “strobe”, and “IP Rating,” but someone who may just be starting out using your product could easily get confused and be put off.

Our job as business owners and marketing agencies is not to walk ahead of or behind the customer, but to walk with them. We cannot do this if we don’t understand what their destination is.

Quantitative Research

Image Credit: Justin Morgan Via Unsplash

With so many free and paid tools enabling us to measure user behavior, it’d be a shame not to leverage that data. Tools like Google Analytics, Semrush, and Ahrefs are great resources for seeing what kind of content your audience is looking for. Not only that, but you can also measure what kind of content resonates with them.

For example, when you see a page has the highest exit rate on your website, you should investigate why. It may not necessarily be a bad thing. It is possible that this page provides the user with the information they are looking for, and once they find it, they leave. To get a fuller picture, you may want to look at the bounce rate of these exit pages. If the bounce rates on these are high, then you know you need to make changes that reflect the audience’s needs.

Social Listening

Image Credit: George Pagan III Via Unsplash

Simply put, social listening is a way to keep a tab on your brand’s mentions online. Social listening enables you to not only know what people are saying about you, but it also helps you understand the sentiment around your brand. Some common tools, like Talkwalker and Synthesio, are power-packed with features that businesses can use, depending on their budget.

Of course, not all companies can afford to invest in heavyweight tools, but that doesn’t mean they cannot take advantage of social listening. Social media is your best resource to not only advertise your product, but also to gather feedback from your customers, understand audience sentiment, build conversations, and identify ambassadors. Truth be told, social media provide an immense amount of information, and smaller brands that recognize this can see astronomical growth.

When you invest in learning about your audience, you are investing in your business. This is not a step you or your marketing agency should skip over. If your product isn’t for your audience, then who is it for? If your messaging isn’t resonating with your audience, why create it?

At Boxwood Digital, we invest in learning not only about our clients’ products, but also their customers. This is why we can create SEO strategies and content that drive results. If you’d like to explore opportunities for your business, schedule a consultation with us.