Identifying Your Target Audience — They’re Called ‘People’

Product, Price, Promotion, Placement. Everyone is familiar with the 4Ps of marketing. There’s (yet another) 5th ‘P’. People. We call them many different names including consumers, customers, targets, audience, target audience, etc… In reality, they’re people and they’re the ones who buy your products and services. The first of the Marketnology Building Blocks is all about people – Identify Your Target Audience.

The truth of the matter is that you can’t effectively determine any of the 4Ps without knowing the people to whom you want to sell. Whether you’re B2C CPG targeting stay-at-home moms or you’re B2B vendor selling widgets to IT Directors, it’s imperative that you truly understand the people who will be buying. People aren’t the same. All IT Directors aren’t the same nor are all stay-at-home moms the same. We should be thankful for that, too. Otherwise, there’d only be the need for one color of widget in one size and little reason to charge higher prices for extra features.

From a Marketnology perspective, one of the best ways to figure out who your audience is is to ask them. Online survey response rates are reported to be in the greater-than than 25% range and as high as 60%. That’s not bad. You can also have people self-identify themselves on your web site. For you B2Bers, ask your sales people. Ask your sales people about the age and behaviors of their clients. It may not seem all that important at first, but having clients and prospects with an average age of 30 probably allows you to do things a bit differently than if they had an average age of 54. Take advantage of that.

Get to know these ‘people’ who buy your wares. Identifying and understanding your audience is probably the single most important thing you can do to begin selling a product — even more important than the product itself. After all, who’d have thought that people would buy bottled tap water? Not me. Yet, marketers who understand people knew it and turned it into a segment that represents over 25% (and the number 1 and 2 positions) of a $8-10 billion industry.

Perhaps that ancient adage “Know thyself” should continue “… and thy neighbor” — especially for marketers. Next up. Determining Target’s Media Preferences.