Identifying your target audience is an important marketing activity. This is where you identify who in the community you want to reach with your marketing efforts and to whom you want to sell your product. In contrast to the ideal customer profile, which is an abstract concept, the target audience represents real people who you need to reach. The ideal customer profile is a great starting point to identifying the target audience.
While many in the community may share the same problems, not everyone can be your customer. Identifying the target audience involves narrowing the focus to a subset of people who you want to reach.
You can identify the target audience in different ways:
- By profession, like “I want to serve writers and authors” or “I want to serve software developers”
- By location, like “I want to serve people who live near rivers and lakes” or “I want to serve people who live in large cities”
The above are generic community descriptions, so to make them a target audience you should add more constraints, for example:
- Who make more than $150,000 per year
- Who have between 10 and 50 employees
Remember that while you need to select just one target audience right now, you can change it or expand to serve additional target audiences later.
The more focused your niche is, the easier it will be to validate your solution when you get to that step later.
Compass
After you identify the target audience, continue to connect with the target audience.
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