One of the most important things you can do to create a successful marketing plan is to identify your target audience.
Once you know who your audience is, you can craft your messaging and communication channels in a way that resonates with them and gets them engaged with your brand.
It’s all about understanding who your ideal customer is, what their needs and preferences are, and how they make purchasing decisions.
Conducting market research
One way to identify these characteristics is through market research. In the old days, market and customer research meant sending a few ad hoc surveys to customers and prospects when companies had questions that needed to be answered.
Now we know that customers and prospects are giving feedback all the time, and we need a more systematic way of capturing these insights as they arise.
Here are some handy sources of info that’ll help you identify your target audience:
- Competitors’ websites and social media pages
- Customer surveys or focus groups
- Social media analytics
- Website traffic and user behavior
- Demographic data from market research reports
- Online reviews and feedback from customers
- Industry events or conferences
- Interviews with current customers or potential customers
Let’s go into more detail on some of these options.
Most companies know listening to customer and market feedback is good for business. But many of us still struggle to take that feedback and turn it into action.
Here are some examples of transactional feedback channels, and the type of insights you can gain from them:
- Online review sites are a great source of feedback, as they’re used by your customers to drive purchase decisions.
- For B2B companies, common review sites include G2, Capterra, TrustRadius, Trust Pilota, and Gartner Peer Reviews.
- For B2C companies, common review sites include Trust Pilot, Facebook Reviews, App Stores, Yelp, and Google Reviews.
Feedback shared on these sites helps you understand what customers perceive as your strengths and weaknesses. Prioritize this channel not just for brand awareness and leads, but for constant learning and improvement.
Communities and online forums are other great channels of feedback where customers often share questions, product issues, and success stories.
Qualitative NPS, CSAT, and other surveys are also great channels for customer feedback.
Customer interviews are also a strong source of feedback, and can either be performed by your team or third parties.
The benefit of these listening channels is that you can go deep into customer needs, and uncover new insights by asking customers questions directly. Gathering in-depth feedback can also help you build stronger relationships with customers and allow them to feel heard.
Before we wrap up, here are two more ways we can help you get to grips with your target audience:
1. Become a Pro+ member – Membership gives you access to every single one of our courses and a complimentary event ticket each year. Accelerate your product marketing career and develop your knowledge in every aspect of PMM with ideas and resources you can apply to everyday projects. Learn today, apply tomorrow.
2. Customer Research Certified – Available as part of the Pro+ Membership or as a standalone course, Customer Research Certified will equip you with the fundamental skills you need to get to the heart of what your customers really want.
