How to Create Your Audience
The success of your business often depends on your audience and being able to convert them into paying customers. So, it’s important to know how to create your audience.
Targeting the Right Audience
Targeting the right audience is key and it means you’re spending the right amount of time and resources on marketing strategies that are seen by the right people at the right time. The use of geolocation data can give you an insight into where your audience is based and helps you use this information to its full potential. When you have accurate audience data, your marketing becomes highly specific and targeted, yielding better results than a one-size-fits-all approach. These insights will ensure you make better marketing decisions moving forward, helping you optimize your marketing efforts.
Offering solutions
Although you need your audience to buy from you to ensure your business is financially viable, it helps to build a connection with them. One way of doing this is by offering solutions to some of their problems. This is often by selling them products or services which can do this, but to build trust and familiarity, you can share regular content relevant to their interests and your small business. For example; if you run a gardening business, you might write blog posts offering tips on the best time to plant and grow certain flowers. If you sell these, your audience is more likely to purchase them from you, after you’ve explained everything they need to know about growing them.
On social media
Social media has a reputation for being distracting, but it can help you reach your audience if used in the right way. Using the data you have, you can use the relevant hashtags to appeal to your audience and target them by location. You can also interact with specific groups and build your visibility among your target audience, and gain followers on your own pages.
By sharing information about the local area in a way that shows how your business can help them, you will be able to form connections with the community.
Getting involved
By getting involved locally, in the areas where your audience is predominately based, you can establish your presence as a business that serves the community and supports the things which matter to them. This could be setting up a stall at a local market, being part of a charity project or helping raise awareness of an issue that is important locally.
As a small business, you might not be able to undercut the prices of bigger businesses, but you offer a more personalised and caring approach to running your business. Your audience will appreciate seeing a familiar face, instead of a faceless company that treats them like a number. With more people willing to support local businesses, adding a personal touch not only encourages people to buy from you, but lets you make a positive change to the local community and the issues that matter to you.
Creating an audience doesn’t have to be challenging. If you’ve put the effort into creating your products or services, then tailoring your marketing and reaching an audience is achievable, if you have the right data to understand your potential customers.