How to identify your target online audience

Having an online audience is key to your marketing being effective. But before you can begin thinking about how to grow it, you need to figure out who is in that audience. Who would be interested in your services? Or in supporting you and your business?

Let’s take a look at how to identify your online audience.

Why have a clearly-defined online audience?

You need to know where your target is in order to be successful. The legendary Robin Hood would have never been able to split the arrow in his target without knowing exactly where he needed to aim.

All the rest of your goals and plans are dependent on your target. Once you know where you need to aim, the rest falls in to place.

Figure out your niche

The first step in identifying your online audience is to define your niche. What are your business’ specialities? What sets you apart and could potentially make you a great fit for someone? What values do you adhere to? Are you passionate about a certain cause?

Once you start to answer to these sorts of questions, you can begin to figure out who you are as a business, and why your clients should care about you and your services.

Who are your best clients?

You’ll be setting yourself up for failure if you try to make everyone your client. It’s better to figure out what makes the absolute best client for your business.

Is there a particular project that went exceedingly well? Is there a client that you communicated beautifully with? Make a list of your best clients in the past, then write down why they’re the best.

What do your best clients have in common?

Once you know who your best clients are, it’s time to find more like them. To do this, see what your they have in common. If you’re looking for clients on a consumer level, these are some of the questions you can ask:

• Do they live in similar geographic areas?
• What is their income range?
• Are they married?
• Do they have kids?
• Are they more hands-on, or do they prefer to pay people to do things for them?
• Is money more valuable to them, or is time?

If you’re looking for clients on a business-to-business (B2B) level, some additional questions you could ask are:

• Do they have similar industries?
• Who is the decision-maker?
• What is their position in the company?

In the process, you may find that you rule out some potential clients, and that is okay. In fact, it’s expected. It is better to find fewer people who you are a great fit for, than a bunch of people who you are just an okay fit for.

Regardless of the platform you are using, determining your audience is the foundation to having successful online marketing. Once you have your target, you will be ready to split some arrows with some great marketing, just like Robin Hood.

P. S. You can download a worksheet for defining your target market over at the OOMPHcast website in the show notes for episode 1.