Posting content online is a great way to improve your reputation with your customer base and boost your business website’s search rankings. However, simply writing whatever comes to mind that day is not enough—you must ensure that your web content is consistently written in a way that appeals to your target audience. What is a target audience and how can you define yours? Here is a basic guide to target audiences to help you get started.
What is a target audience?
A target audience is the group of people you are aiming your content towards. These are the individuals who you want to read, share, and react to your blogs, social media posts, and custom graphics. The simplest way to define a target audience is through basic demographics, such as age, gender, and occupation. However, when it comes to online marketing, you have the ability to go beyond these basic factors and identify a target audience based on interests and internet use. For instance, a company that sells outdoor umbrellas may have an established customer base of middle-aged workers and retirees, but wish to expand that customer base to include younger generations. This company’s target audience for online content may be students and office workers between the ages of 20 and 35 who are interested in outdoor sports, grilling, and sunbathing.
Why do target audiences matter?
If you’re not creating your web content with a target audience in mind, you could end up wasting significant time and money building up a web presence that doesn’t result in sales conversions. Your posts may get little traction online, or you may find that the people who do visit your website aren’t interested in becoming customers. Identifying your target audience and choosing the best strategy to reach it can help you spread the word about your products or services directly to your potential customers.
How can I find my business’ target audience?
Look at who your current customers are, as well as what additional markets you want to capture. These two groups of people—those who are already in your customer base and those who you would like to add to your customer base—are your target markets. Now, consider how you want to use your online content to reach these individuals. Once you have determined the types of consumers you are hoping to turn into customers with your blogs, social media posts, and other forms of web content, you’ll be able to start defining your target audience and tailoring your content to reach it.
Pennington Creative’s team of writers, editors, and social media managers has years of experience tailoring online content to fit different businesses’ target audiences. Click here to find out more about our content services, and contact us to set up a discovery call and learn more about how we can help your business.