Analysis of the target audience

Sales success directly depends on how well we understand our potential buyers. Before entering the market with a new product or service, companies carefully study their target audience.

When we know that we offer exactly what the customer needs, it is easier to interest him. This means that advertising campaigns will be more effective, and the cost of attracting new customers will decrease.

Target audience (TA) are not only those who are already looking for your product right now. It also includes those who have not yet thought about buying. After all, needs change, and your product may become relevant for them in the future.

It all starts with an in-depth analysis of existing customers. By studying their preferences, behavior and characteristics, we can identify key features by which we will look for similar people among the entire consumer mass.

In essence, preliminary market research is an investment in the future. By investing in a deep understanding of its audience, the company gets the opportunity to more precisely target its marketing efforts and, as a result, increase sales.

Analysis of the target audience is a key stage in the development of any business, which allows you to better understand your customers and effectively adjust marketing strategies. This process allows you to segment the audience according to various criteria and determine their needs, which helps to increase sales and attract loyal customers. In this article, we will provide a practical guide that will help you conduct a TA analysis step by step.

How to determine the key parameters of the audience?

To begin with, you need to understand who exactly you consider to be your customer. To do this, divide the audience according to the main parameters.

Demographic characteristics

1. Age: What age range are your customers in? For example, young people (18-24 years old) or older generations (35-50 years old)?
2. Sex: Who are your main buyers – men, women or both groups?
3. Education: What is the level of education of your customers? This can influence their preferences, income and the types of content they are interested in.
4. Income: What is the average income level of your audience? This will help to correctly position goods by price.
5. Marital status: Are your customers single, married, have children?

Geographic parameters

1. Location: In which cities, regions or countries does your audience live? This data can help to better customize local advertising campaigns.
2. Climatic conditions: For example, if you sell seasonal products, this is important to consider.

Psychographic parameters

1. Interests and hobbies: What is your audience interested in? It can be sports, travel, technology or culture.
2. Values: What is important to them? Environmental responsibility, health, career development or family relationships?
3. Lifestyle: How do customers spend their free time? For example, an active lifestyle, frequent trips or housekeeping.

Behavioral parameters

1. Buying habits: How often do customers shop? Are they looking for promotions and discounts, or are they willing to pay for premium products?
2. Brand loyalty: Do you have regular customers who always come back? How can you increase their loyalty?
3. Interaction with content: What type of content is most engaging for your audience? Videos, articles, infographics or product reviews?

Why do you need to know your target audience?

Improve a product or service. In the start-up phase, a business often has only a general idea of ​​what it is going to sell. Defining the target audience helps to better understand what aspects of the product can be improved. For example, a cleaning service can target busy people by offering them quick cleaning services during business hours. Or focus on families with children, focusing on safe cleaning products. Analysis of the target audience makes it possible not only to improve existing products, but also to add new ones, as well as to determine for which audience the product may be more useful and relevant.

Development of a communication strategy. Gender, age, marital status, education and interests influence how people communicate. Understanding your target audience helps you factor these factors into your company’s communications. For example, a youth clothing brand can communicate with the audience on “you”, since its segment is dominated by young people under 20 years old, to whom it is closer.

In addition, knowing the interests of the audience helps to determine which content on the website and in social networks will be the most interesting. For example, if the audience of the store is dog owners, they will surely find useful materials about training and care for pets, even if these topics are only indirectly related to business.

Launch of advertising campaigns. Refinement of the product or communication strategy is a strategic and long-term task. And running ads is a constant practice. It is important not to target a wide audience, but on those who are potentially interested in the product.

Creation of personalized offers. For example, among all customers, you can select a separate group – families with children – and offer them discounts on goods for children.

Data collection for TA analysis

Audience analysis requires specific information. Here are some practical ways to collect data about your customers:

Website analytics

• Google Analytics: One of the most popular audience analysis tools. It allows you to track demographic data (age, gender, location), site behavior (time spent, pages viewed) and traffic sources.

Practical steps:

1. Enable Demographics and Interests reporting in Google Analytics to get information about users’ gender, age, and interests.
2. Learn through which channels users come to the site (organic traffic, advertising, social networks).

Social networks

• Facebook Insights: Provides information about the age, gender, location and activity of users on your brand pages.
• Instagram Insights: Learn who interacts with your content: likes, comments, post saves and links.
• YouTube Analytics: If you use video content, this tool will provide information about audience demographics and activity (views, watch time).

Practical steps:

1. Analyze which social media posts generate the most engagement.
2. Use ad targeting features to test different audience segments.

Surveys and questionnaires

• Online survey: You can use services such as Google Forms, SurveyMonkey, or Type form to create surveys and collect information about your customers’ preferences.
• Questions in social networks: Create interactive surveys on your pages to better understand the interests and needs of your audience.

Practical steps:

1. Create a survey with open-ended questions to gain a deeper understanding of customer motivations (for example, “What interests you most about our product?”).
2. Add question blocks to your post-purchase feedback form to learn more about customer satisfaction.

CRM systems and sales history

• Analysis of purchase data: Use CRM systems to analyze each customer’s purchases, average check, frequency of purchases and interactions with your brand.
• Customer segmentation: Divide customers into groups based on purchasing activity (new, regular, dormant customers).

Practical steps:

1. Use CRM to create automated offers or promotions for different customer segments.
2. Analyze which products are most often purchased at certain times of the year, and whether there are patterns in customer behavior.

Target audience segmentation

After we’ve studied our audience in detail, it’s time to segment them into more manageable segments. Segmentation is the process of dividing a large group of people into smaller subgroups united by common characteristics, interests, or behavior.

Segmentation is needed in order to:

• personalize communication;
• create individual offers;
• choose optimal promotion channels;
• improve the effectiveness of marketing campaigns.

The main options for segmentation:

1. Demographic segmentation: Division of the audience by age, gender, income level, education, etc. This will help to better adapt advertising messages to each group.
2. Geographic segmentation: Divide audiences by regions or countries to better customize local advertising campaigns.
3. Behavioral segmentation: Identify groups of customers based on their behavior on the site (for example, those who browse a lot of pages but do not buy, or those who only buy with discounts).
4. Psychographic segmentation: Segment by interests, lifestyle and values ​​to offer more personalized solutions.

Creation of a customer portrait (Customer Persona)

Customer Persona is a generalized image of the ideal client based on TA segmentation. It includes demographic, psychographic and behavioral characteristics.

This information should be presented in the form of a complete, vivid description, as if you are talking about a real person. You can even find a photo that visually fits this image. This approach helps to better understand your audience, to feel their needs and motives. This, in turn, makes it possible to create a more personalized and persuasive communication.

When creating portraits of the target audience, it is important not to base it on assumptions or stereotypes, but on real data obtained during the analysis. Therefore, this stage should be started after careful information gathering. You should not limit yourself to one or two portraits, even if the niche is narrow. Within a segment, there may be subgroups of customers with different characteristics and behaviors. It is optimal to have 3-5 main portraits of the target audience.

Example profile:

1. Name: Anna, 35 years old.
2. Location: Kyiv, Ukraine.
3. Position: Marketer in a large company.
4. interests: Travel, sports, personal development.
5. Values: Environmental friendliness, balance between work and personal life.
6. Purchase motives: Looking for quality products that emphasize her lifestyle and values.
7. Behavior: Reads reviews before buying, is active in social networks.

To summarize

Analysis of the target audience is not a one-time task, but an important and regular process that helps businesses adapt to changes in the market and better understand their customers. Deep knowledge of the target audience allows you to more accurately offer relevant products and services, optimize marketing strategies and strengthen long-term relationships with customers. Using the results of the analysis, companies can not only improve their positions, but also increase customer loyalty by satisfying their real needs.

Oleksandr Romanenko

Team Lead/Senior SEO specialist

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Olha Tyshchenko

Editor

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