Getting To Know Your Target Audience
Understanding your dream clients inside out
Understanding your audience sits at the core of everything in your business.
Knowing who your dream client is and what they want and need from you makes just about every decision further down the line in your business SO much easier.
What I’m talking about here is not just knowing who your audience are, but really understanding your audience on a deeper, emotional level.
Despite how powerful getting to know your audience is, it’s still one of those things that lots of business owners I speak to struggle to get their head around, for a few different reasons:
You know it’s going to take some precious time to sit down and get clarity on it (but believe me it’ll save you SO much time in the long-run)!
You don’t know where to find the info - I’m about to answer that problem in this post.
It’s not the sexiest part of growing a business, mostly people want to get to the good stuff. Buuuut, here’s the scoop. Knowing your audience inside out, upside down is your key to getting to the good stuff in business.
Let me repeat. Understanding your audience is seriously powerful stuff.
When you know your ideal audience inside out it helps you:
Understand what offers to introduce that will best help your target market
Know how to communicate with your audience
Where you need to be doing your marketing to get in front of the right people
How to write your sales page copy, email copy… any copy!
How to map out and build your sales funnel
What you need to know about your audience
Before we talk about what you NEED to know about your audience, let me bust a myth for you, and tell you what’s not interesting or important to know about your audience at all…
DEMOGRAPHICS
Age
Where they live
Whether they’re married or single
What their earning bracket is
Male or female
SNORE!!!
These aren’t important or interesting factors - not really. Because, these aren’t emotional things we bond over.
You’re not friends with someone because they’re also 35 and live in the town you live in – if you have nothing else you have in common.
You connect with people over enjoying the same TV show, having the same hobby, being business owners, being passionate about the same causes.
It’s the same with your business, people connect with you on an emotional level.
Because they love your aesthetic, they're on board with your values, they know you can help them with their struggles.
There is one caveat here…
Perhaps you work with women going through menopause or you’re a local business - in which case, a rough idea of age or where people live is important.
But the chances are they need to be those things AND – have some kind of emotional factor that makes them connect with your brand.
Here are the most important things you need to know about your audience...
What are their struggles and challenges? What keeps them up at night? What’s bugging them?
They’re planning their wedding and they are stressed and overwhelmed about everything they’ve got to organise
They want to decorate their home with items that feel unique, are made sustainably, and reflect their personal style – but they’re struggling to find home decor that fits their unique, kooky style.
The thought of public speaking feels terrifying. They keep saying no to the opportunities that come up – even though they really want to start doing it
Take note of the FEELINGS here.
Feelings are SO important when it comes to understanding your audience and communicating with them, because we connect with, and buy from brands on an emotional level.
In the examples above I’ve mentioned above, you’ll notice feelings around: being stressed, overwhelmed, terrified, wanting to be part of something.
People don’t buy things, we buy feelings.
You didn’t buy that mug because it holds 500ml of liquid, you bought it because the maker is hilarious on Instagram. Most of all you love the fact that her packaging is sustainable and everything is handmade in her beautiful Dorset studio.
You didn’t choose to work with that VA because she’s the most skilled VA out there, you chose to work with her because you TRUST her and she gets your sense of humour.
You didn’t take that course because it comes with 5 live sessions and 10 modules. You bought it because the person running it has been through the struggles you’re experiencing and flourished - she can help you do the same. She has a lot of the same values as you around making time for family and not working 24/7. And you love how free and luxurious her lifestyle looks on Instagram – you want a piece of that.
What are their aspirations, hopes, dreams, wants and needs? What change do they want to make?
Maybe they want to create a whimsical country wedding and have a really relaxed, wonderful day
Feel comfortable and at peace in their home and love everything in it – it really reflects their unique kooky style
They want to confidently walk into their job appraisal meeting and ask for a pay rise – and get it!
Again, take note of the FEELINGS. In these examples they want to feel relaxed, confident, comfortable, at peace.
A quick note on your ideal client’s struggles, challenges, aspirations and dreams
The words - struggles, challenges, aspirations, dreams etc sound pretty dramatic right? They make it sound like what you do in your business needs to be life changing! That's a lot of pressure.
But how your serving your audience doesn’t need to be life changing. It could be that you’re helping them find 10-minutes of calm in their day or helping them create a home that makes them feel comfortable.
Other useful things to understand about your audience...
To me, understanding what your ideal client’s struggles & challenges are, and what their dreams and aspirations are, is the most important thing to understand.
Once you’ve got that nailed, there are some other useful things to understand about your audience.
What else is going on in their life at the moment (outside of your niche)
Where they hangout online or in real life – so you know where to get busy with your marketing
What kind of language, buzz-words and phrases they use – so you can speak to them on a human level
Where to get all of this info on your ideal audience!
Starting with a gut-feel is A-OK!
People are often scared to ‘get it wrong’ by just going with what they think. But usually your gut has a pretty good feel for who your audience are and what their struggles and aspirations are. From there you can learn more as you engage & work with your audience over time
Who do you want to work with?
Don’t forget that you make the rules in your business. So ask yourself who would be your absolute dream client.
Ask them!
Put some stories out on Instagram and ask for people’s responses.
Eg. I’ve run out of podcasts to listen to – what are some of your favourites (to find out which podcast you might want to appear on) or a straight up – I’m trying to understand how best I can help you with my content - what are some of your biggest struggles/ challenges/ bugbears you have with X?
Market research
If you want to go a step further why not conduct some market research calls or a survey.
Put a shout out for volunteers (based on the audience you want to work with) in your newsletter, perhaps add an incentive and ask people if they would be happy to give you 20-minutes of their time.
Ask yourself - a few years ago
A lot of businesses exist because the owner scratched their own itch.
For example, in my business now I help people build anti-ick sales funnels that help them take a step back from launching and hustling on social media 24/7 for every click, sign up and sale - which is a service I really could have done with before I hit burnout in the last version of my business (read the full story here).
I remember what running my business from a place of hustle used to feel like, I even have journal entries to go back to – which feed into understanding my audience.
Using a mix of those different ways to get to know your ideal audience, you’ll start to create a solid picture of who they are and get to know them on a deeply human, emotional level.
Keep it all together in a document you can easily access on your laptop the next time you’re doing a content brainstorm, writing a page for your website or planning your marketing.
Wanna tuck this in your pocket as your go-to guide for getting to know your audience? Bookmark it & Pin it for later:
