Target audience is defined as the group of consumers characterized by their behavior and specific demographics (Carmicheal, 2020). Target audience is important for any business because they have to know and understand who they are marketing towards. From there, we can take this information and create a strong foundation for a marketing plan. A big question we can ask ourselves, “how can we define who are our target audience is?” Believe it or not, there are very useful tools that many companies utilize to help determine an answer.
One of the most helpful tools would be Google Analytics. Google Analytics is a web analytic tool that allows us to see website insights, which can be sectioned off into age, gender, and location (Carmicheal, 2020). There are also charts and graphs which will allow for easier interpretation of how the data is broken down. Under the Audience tab in Google Analytics, there is other helpful areas we can use to define our target audience. There are sections such as demographics where we can view our audience’s age and gender and another section called affinity and in-market audiences (Kaplan, n.d). Affinity identifies users on their lifestyles, such as cooking, pet lovers, etc. (Kaplan, n.d.). In-market identifies users on their product-purchase interests such as home decor, computers, clothing, etc. (Kaplan, n.d.).
Another tool we can use Facebook Audience Insights. This tool can identify and help marketers learn more about their target audience (Roque, 2020). On Facebook Audience Insights, marketers can select a variety of audience criteria such as their location, age, interests, and behaviors (Roque, 2020). We can also learn in-depth about the audience, from the size of the target market, and trends in demographics and/or psychographics (Roque, 2020).
These are only two of many useful analytic web software that will be extremely useful for any marketing team. When a company first starts out and the marketing team is still developing their initial strategies, it seems difficult to gather and research every single thing about who are the consumers, who we want to sell and advertise to. With Google Analytics and Facebook Audience Insights, this allows marketers to obtain the beneficial data and information to define the target audience. It is no longer just assuming this and that about who the target market is. Technology today has allowed many companies and their marketing departments to use analytic tools to find this information to produce a successful marketing campaign.
References:
Carmicheal, K. (2020 January 21). How to Find Your Target Audience. Retrieved from https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/target-audience
Kaplan, A. (N.d.). 6 ONLINE TOOLS ANYONE CAN USE TO IDENTIFY YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE. Retrieved from https://info.heynowmedia.com/tools-to-identify-your-target-audience
Roque, C. (2020 May 20). How to Define a Target Audience (For Your Marketing Plans). Retrieved from https://business.tutsplus.com/tutorials/define-a-target-audience–cms-29368
Brandy Chanthapho 