Who? 
‘Who’ and ‘What’ really go hand in hand. There has to be a ‘What’ (a product or service) for there to be a ‘Who’ but before you go rushing into developing and refining your product or offer you need to asses if there is a need for your product, and for there to be a need there needs to be a market. Who are you serving? Who needs what you offer? If that does not exist, neither could your business. 

The successful marketing of anything has to start with identifying if there is a need in the market, and then what/who is that market? If you cannot identify your market, who are you going to market to?

So with that, let’s get stuck in…

Week 1: Who are your clients? 
Defining your target audience and finding your tribe

As with any business marketing, it’s important to reach as many people as possible. However, if you haven’t worked out precisely who those ‘people’ are, you will just end up wasting time, money and your business will suffer. A solid understanding of your core client is vital to effective marketing of any kind.

What is a target audience?
A target audience is the demographic of people most likely to be interested in your product or service. These are the people you need to be directly marketing to. When you know who this demographic is, you will be much more able to find and communicate with them in a way that appeals, and your efforts will be much more effective. 

Let’s take the example of a preschool 
The target audience of a childcare setting is going to be local parents/carers with young children – specifically babies, toddlers and even expecting parents. Now we’ve narrowed this down, we are then able to explore this demographic further: 

• What content are they are likely to be interested in reading (childcare, parenting advice, activity ideas etc.)
• Where they are likely to be found (online tools, i.e. childcare, pregnancy and parenting websites and groups, toys and educational websites, magazines…) 
• When the best time to reach out to them is (you can bet your bottom dollar if you’re trying to talk to a mum between the hours of 4 and 7 pm when they are in the midst of feeding, bathing and bedding little people, they will not be listening).

Once you know your target audience, a bit more in-depth research can go even further into helping you refine your product, offering, and even your brand. By understanding their pain points, what motivates them and what drives your audience’s decisions to buy.

Other examples…
In the trades, you’re looking at homeowners, landlords and or local contractors etc.
A local grocer would be the local community, families and businesses. 
A beauty salon would be, local mums, businesses and working women, or men for that matter *slaps hand* – a good example of why exploring this process in depth is always a good idea.
An online marketer, small businesses and new businesses needing advice across whatever geographic location that has wifi and a website… you get the idea. 

A few questions to help direct your research into defining your target audience:
What needs or problems does your product or service fulfil?
 Who needs and uses your product or service? 
Age range
Gender
Occupation
Income level/Buying power
Geographical location
Interests – endless options here really but a few examples; sports, fashion, childcare, online shopping, nature, games, family, cars, …. You get the idea. 
Personality
Attitudes
Values
Lifestyles –  an individual’s attitudes, way of life, values, or world view. Homeowners, Jet setters…
Behaviour
What do these people have in common?
What drives their decision to buy?
How can you best reach them?
Where do they hang out? Do they favour one social network over another?


By working through as many of these as you can, you should start to build a good idea of who you are really trying to reach. However don’t simply trust your own opinions on these answers, it is important to take some time to do the research – you may find there is more to your target audience than you thought. 

Do some good old fashioned market research! Sometimes if you are not sure the answers to some these, you could take a look at your current website or even social media stats to see who has been looking and taking an interest and take note. 

Also, once you have completed this activity, don’t presume you have your audience completely sussed. Be agile, keep coming back to the questions above and, together with your analytics, you may want to modify your approach to best suit your audience. Apart from looking to your own website analytics, there are some great resources for market research available including Alexa (competitor website analytics and data) Google Trends, Ahrefs (competitor research tools and backlink checker) and Quantcast (specialising in AI-driven audience insights).

Sometimes narrowing your precise audience for some businesses is not quite as simple. If you need help or advice on any of this please just get in touch by email, website or social media we’re always happy to chat and give advice. 

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