Signs of the target group of subjects. Target audience and its types

The target audience is one of critical aspects marketing activities for any modern company. Its presence in a certain group of goods provides an opportunity to concentrate on a certain group of market consumers and create an ideal product for them, which can subsequently be sold in the right place and with competent communication.

What is it like?

The target audience is an element that defines the boundaries of the company's market, and it is recognized in the process of conducting specialized marketing research.

In other words, this is a specific group of people who are interested in your product and want to reap the benefits of purchasing it. It can represent a specific consumer market segment or a group of several such segments at once. It is quite natural that there are certain signs and characteristics for each group, which includes the target audience - these are:

  • Geographical location (for example, the product is distributed among the inhabitants of Western Europe).
  • Socio-demographic situation (for example, women aged 30-40 years with an income above average, working in business).
  • Psychographic characteristics (for example, this product may be in demand among people trying to assert themselves in the surrounding society).
  • Behavioral characteristics (for example, certain products are ideal for people who buy the product only once).

In the process of determining the target audience, you must definitely pay close attention to the dynamics of its number and the total number, which is measured in thousands. The volume that your target audience has is the market capacity and the maximum sales volume. With this information, you can estimate the profitability of your business in advance, as well as the overall return on advertising investment and the company's growth prospects in the future.

Kernel and species

Any target audience has a core: it is a certain group of people, which includes the most important and active consumers of a certain product. In the majority of cases, it is customary to refer to the core as consumers who can bring the company the maximum share of sales and profits, that is, they use this product most often or experience the greatest need, satisfying it by any means. Thus, in modern marketing practice, it is customary to distinguish two main types to which the target audience can belong - these are primary and secondary. Each type has its own characteristics, and therefore requires an individual approach.

Primary

The primary, or as it is also commonly called, the main target audience of advertising is the priority communication of any brand, which includes a group of people who make a direct decision about the need to purchase a particular product. In other words, the primary audience is the initiator of the purchase.

Secondary

The secondary target audience behaves more passively, and even if it takes part in the procurement process, it cannot represent the initiator of the need to purchase any service or product. In this regard, the secondary audience is not such a high priority for the brand.

The differences that each such target audience of the brand has is precisely the initiative of the acquisition. A striking example here can be children's clothing, which was originally designed specifically for children, but at the same time only parents will buy it. Children cannot make independent purchases of clothes for themselves, but at the same time they quite often act as initiators, since they ask their parents for it and need it, as a result of which they represent the primary audience.

Socio-demographic characteristics

According to socio-demographic characteristics, the target audience is a group of people distributed according to the following parameters:

  • age;
  • education;
  • social or family status;
  • income level;
  • race or nationality;
  • occupation, profession, position;
  • place of residence.

In this case, the definition of the target audience is the choice of a certain group of people according to the above criteria. For example, some product can be designed for women aged 40-50 with low or middle income, who have a secondary specialized or higher education, and who live in large cities with a population of more than 1 million people.

This principle is fully used when the target audience of the media is determined - these are regional or long-distance TV channels, the programs and broadcasts of which are designed for a specific group of people. For example, forensic programs and TV series are aimed mainly at men over 30 and with an average income.

Psychographic characteristics

Psychographic characteristics are also used to reach target audiences. This is a certain number of parameters that people who are potential consumers must meet:

  • description of character traits;
  • values, attitude to any acute social problems;
  • consumer behavior model;
  • hobbies, lifestyle, some personal interests;
  • the most frequent places of purchase of goods or the specifics of the purchase;
  • relation to price;
  • factors that determine the choice of a product.

All these parameters must be taken into account, especially if you use more serious means of advertising, such as conducting custom interviews, screenings or anything else. The target audience of the show is one of the most important parameters for determining where exactly is the best place to advertise your products in this way.

How to define the target audience?

The most difficult, but at the same time paramount task for any modern business is to determine the target audience of your own product. In the future, the entire marketing mix that your company conducts on the market will completely depend on this step. It should be noted that the target audience can be determined in two main ways:

  • proceed from the characteristics of the product that you are selling;
  • based on the size of the market you intend to capture.

What should be considered when determining the target audience?

Regardless of which option you choose, you need to answer a few of the most important questions:

  • What is the socio-demographic profile of potential customers?
  • What psychographic characteristics might the target audience have?
  • What are the basic requirements for a product that most potential customers might have?
  • What key needs will the people who buy this product be trying to meet?
  • How are consumers going to shop, and what exactly influences their choices?
  • Where can the target consumer find out information about a particular product and with what specific means of communication does he interact during his day?

We determine depending on the product

If you have a specific product, and at the same time you cannot change its characteristics or it is rather difficult to do it, then you should choose for yourself such a market segment in which, even with the current features, your products may become in demand. In this case, the most optimal would be to use the following scheme for finding potential consumers:

  1. Product analysis. Conduct a comparative competitive analysis of your products, try to see their strengths or unique properties. It is best to find at least 2-3 of these most important qualities, which can be packaging design, price, working conditions and much more.
  2. Consumer analysis. Try to conduct your research in the form of a consumer survey. Try to get answers to the above questions from loyal customers and determine why your product is currently appreciated in the market and why people are buying it.
  3. Segmentation. Based on the key attributes by which the product is distributed by consumers in the marketplace, go for segmentation. Define groups of people who are interested and not interested in your product, as well as those who may be interested in them in the future.
  4. Planning. Prepare as much as possible detailed plan marketing campaigns aimed at attracting and retaining potential customers in order to improve the product and expand the range.

Also, an important element that must be taken into account when determining the external and internal target audience is the socio-demographic portrait. potential buyers.

We determine depending on the market

If you are just going to launch a certain product on the market and at the same time set yourself the goal of capturing it, then you are in no way limited in terms of the existing product, as well as the established image about it. In this case, you can use the following work plan in order to ultimately find the most attractive target audience for yourself:

  • carry out a full-fledged market segmentation and analysis;
  • try to identify the most attractive segments in terms of operating principles and profit;
  • Describe the most likely buyers from this segment based on the above six questions;
  • make a detailed plan of how you intend to work with your target audience.

Specifics of determining the target audience

In the process of drawing up a portrait of your target audience, you should always think about the fact that this is a certain group of people who wants to satisfy a certain need, and this is what your product is intended for. In other words, you offer people a product that solves a specific need, and you need to find those consumers who have this need. They will represent the target market for you.

Such a group can be quite wide or narrow, and the wider your target audience, the more vague its description will be, because it becomes difficult to single out some of the most pronounced characteristics. In practice, all companies try to focus specifically on a wide range of target consumers, trying to limit it by age, income, or values. After that, the target audience is divided into several groups depending on the model of consumer behavior, and each group is described in more detail using behavioral characteristics, as well as the severity of the customer's needs.

Many people today operate with such a concept as the target audience, although they do not realize the full depth and complexity of this term. What does it mean by it? Such a phrase in the advertising or marketing field of activity denotes a group of people that has some common characteristics, properties, interests, and therefore with a high degree of probability will pay attention to specific products or services offered, respond to marketing proposals or slogans exactly as they expect them product creators.

The main property of the target audience is its needs and inclination to certain topics, thanks to which this target audience can effectively (the result for an entrepreneur is successful sale) offer any goods or services. Here are just some typical examples:

  1. Men aged 20-35 who play sports will be the target audience for sports nutrition creators;
  2. Women with a child up to 2-3 years old are the target audience for manufacturers of products for babies;
  3. Pensioners suffering from high blood pressure will buy blood pressure monitors, etc. more often than other members of society.

The task of how to determine the target audience is key for every entrepreneur or manufacturer who wants to get the maximum benefit from their activities.

Interesting fact! The exact definition of your potential client is the key to running almost any business.

What types are the target audience

Each field of activity has its own rules for choosing a target audience. The types of target audience depend on many factors, for example, on the ability of potential customers to pay, their wishes and all sorts of preferences, the desire to follow popular trends, etc. Each researcher of the issue has the right to carry out his own classification, but today the CA is divided by specialists into two main and large-scale camps:

  • The main body or main target audience. This includes those people who directly decide which brand of goods to buy for them and what services to order. Representatives of the main body themselves are the initiators of the future track, they are the owners of the money;
  • Indirect part. The characteristics of this target audience may vary, but the common thing is that they have a passive role in future purchases or ordering. They cannot initiate a transaction, do not have money at all, or have enough money to buy something.

This division is now the most used and widespread in the West and in Russia. Researching the target audience of both types is important for marketers, as it allows them to develop the most working solutions to implement their assumptions.

How to identify and analyze your target audience

A huge number of marketers are engaged in determining target audience, who strive to guess as much as possible the wishes of potential customers and make sure that their partners are bought up as intensively as possible. The values ​​of each target audience can differ significantly, so it is important to define your target audience very clearly. For example, you can try to form the target audience of gadget lovers, but if you clarify how many of them love smart watches or smartphones, it turns out that there are very few of the former. Therefore, the seller of smartwatches cannot count on such an audience.

To define your own group of buyers, for whom certain things will be offered later, you can use simple sources, for example,. Today, almost everyone uses it, so there is no problem in finding out the mood of the people and their disposition to buy this or that thing at a certain price. It is important not only to compile a base of interests of your potential buyers, but also to periodically refresh and optimize it with updated data. Periodic polls are suitable for this, for example. Analytical services Wordstat, Google Trands will help you understand the general picture of demand on the Internet for a product or service at a specific time in the right region. With the help of these services, you can find out in which region which queries are most popular. For example, you can see how the demand of the target audience (the number of requests on the Internet) for the purchase of scooters in any city in Russia grows or falls over time. This tool is useful for conducting analytics.

To define your potential customers, it is necessary, first of all, to draw up a portrait of a typical client. This is necessary then in order to clearly understand with whom you will have to interact and what rules should be followed in this case.

Drawing up a portrait of a client should take into account the following key points:

  • The selection of the target audience begins with determining the age;
  • The gender of a person plays a very important role, since women and men in most cases target completely different objects for purchase;
  • Income level. A key point that a manufacturer or seller of a product or service should adjust to. If people do not have the kind of money that you expect from them, then no matter how good your proposal is, it will not receive a response;
  • Marital status, level of education and cultural development, field of activity - these are no less important points that are always worth remembering.

The description of the target audience should be as complete as possible, especially when it comes to really important things. This is the only way to expect the maximum response from the consumer. The benefit of drawing up an adequate portrait of the average client is that the entrepreneur will be able to take extremely reasonable steps and minimize the likelihood that there are no people willing to buy his product (see).

Segmenting your target audience using the 5W method

Segmenting the target audience is the process of dividing potential buyers into separate groups that will set similar requirements for a product or service. The more competently the segmentation is carried out, the more accurately you can determine the group of people interested in the product. People are not original and they always have some general views on the product, requirements for it, wishes regarding the specifics of delivery, etc. Target audience segments, even regarding one market position, can be so different that they do not agree with each other on basic issues. For example, take washing powder... One lady needs powder for washing, another - for washing in any water temperature, the third will need a powder with a strong deodorant effect. They all end up in different interest groups.

There are many segmentation methods, but the most famous and popular among them is the 5W method. This is a 5-question method, which is to answer the following:

  • What- what product, service do you offer, how they differ from others;
  • Who- segmentation by buyer takes place here: for whom your offer is intended, who can buy it;
  • Why- the motivational component, which explains why people will want to buy this particular thing;
  • When- This division is in relation to when the consumer will need to buy the offered product;
  • Where- Where a person may come across the idea that he should get his hands on the thing you offer.

This is the segmentation of the target audience according to the 5W rule. It is quite specific and allows you to quickly determine the portrait of your future consumer. Having a portrait of the target audience, compiled using the 5W method, you can take on product development much more safely.

Defining the target audience: how to correctly describe the target audience

There are many characteristics that can be used to describe target audience. Most often, division occurs according to the following key parameters:

  • Geolocation. It is very important to understand where your future client is, where he lives, works, what he does in his free time, where he will use the thing that you are trying to sell him;
  • Demographic data. This includes age, gender, marital status, the presence or absence of children, and other similar things. They constitute the keys of interest for a competent marketer, as they allow you to very accurately determine a person's hobbies;
  • Socio-economic characteristics. How much money does your potential visitor have, how much of it is he willing to spend on what you offer him, what status and place he occupies in society, what he does in his business life. The portrait of the target audience, an example of which was given above, will be incomplete without such information;
  • Psychographic segmentation. Quite a difficult task, which aims to take into account the mental characteristics of the consumer. But it is difficult to study them, so the picture here will always be incomplete;
  • Behavioral factor. The most important point, which, if properly implemented, can replace all the others. For example, if you are going to sell fish tackle, then you do not need to know the age, place of residence and peculiarities of the psyche of each fisherman. It is enough to know that they love spinning rods and large bright floats.

Taking into account these points, you can create a very clear portrait of the future consumer and guess his aspirations.

Interesting fact! If there are too many selection criteria, it gets in the way of business. It is important to highlight the most important among them.

Characteristics of the target audience and peculiarities of working with it

You do not need to stay on the decision to work with the target audience for a long time - you need to move on to studying it and using the information received. The process looks like this in general terms:

  • Creation of a unique trade offer(USP). When you understand who you want to target your proposal, you need to concretize it and bring it to its final form. Any target audience, examples of which are shown above, yearn for something new, more accessible, interesting and profitable. You have to give it to her with all the characteristics of the average client. The product may be typical, but its design options, some features and features of the advertising campaign must be adjusted to the collected information;
  • Active use of the index of compliance, Affinity Index. This concept denotes how much more actively the target audience interacted with the object of their interest in comparison with other people. If the index is high, then the definition of the target audience was correct, if not, the analysis of the target audience was carried out with errors and needs to be corrected;
  • Using many channels to interact with the target audience. Many advertising agencies are conservative in this regard and use 3-4 channels at most. But the more there are, the better, so there is no point in saving here. You can use search engine optimization, contextual and targeted advertising, email campaigns, message boards and a form, and a ton of tools.

All these tools and a competent choice of the target audience together will certainly give the desired effect and allow you to bypass competitors in the development and popularity of your business.

What does the question of stereotypes mean for the target audience?

The concept of the target audience, methods of its determination, and other difficulties create the impression of talking about something too far away. But do not forget that target audience is first of all ordinary people... And they are fully subject to a huge number of stereotypes - patterns of behavior and thinking, adopted by the majority of representatives of society. Stereotypes can be of all sorts, but they leave a very strong imprint on every person and make him act with an eye on them. And he will act in the same way when buying a product or service.

Let's look at an example. If you are planning to sell razors and will be with the help of a frail guy, the public will not understand. And even if he understands, he will still disdain to buy the goods. If in advertising you use a brutal man who shaves the third time a day before an important event, then this will be a game on stereotypes and success is unambiguous here. That is why it is important to know not only how to correctly describe the target audience, but also how to skillfully play on the acting strong stereotypes that most of the people around us are subject to.

The general characteristics of the target audience should always imply the effect of stereotypes on society, even if in a somewhat crude and generalized form.

Using the portrait and characteristics of the target audience: what tools to work with

If you already have the criteria for selecting the target audience, you have drawn up a portrait of the target audience, then you just have to apply the data in practice. This can be done using huge amount different programs. Here are just a small part of the services and applications for target audience search on the network:

  • Service "Target Cerebro";
  • Similar Web;
  • Plarin;
  • SocFishing;
  • Free Hiconversion service;
  • Allsocial and many others.

Now you have figured out what the target audience means and you can safely use the knowledge in your business. Only a competent and balanced approach will allow you to get the most out of your business and avoid potential troubles.

In this article, you will learn how to properly study customers and compose portraits of the target audience using a specific example.

How to understand who your client is

The target audience is everyone who, in one way or another, showed interest in you + those who do not know about you yet, but who may need your product or service.

Real customers who have already bought from you, and perhaps more than once. Unsuccessful customers who contacted your company but made a purchase from a competitor. And, finally, the entire base of competitors.

However, this is a very abstract definition. In practice, you need details to cling to when describing the benefits of a product. For example, it is misleading to think that English course attendees are buying the courses themselves. They buy a dream - career growth, communication, travel, experiences that will become real thanks to the knowledge of the language.

It is best to study target audience in detail with the help of a collective image / typical character. These are personal characteristics, needs, motives, internal limitations, and peculiarities of perception. It is important to find out what the target client is doing, what tasks they are solving, how they feel and what kind of environment they are in.

For a deep understanding of audience psychology, ask yourself 10 questions from renowned business consultant Dan Kennedy and try to answer them:

  • What makes them wake up at night?
  • What are they afraid of?
  • What / who are they mad at?
  • What are their 3 main experiences of the day?
  • What are the trends in their business / life?
  • What do they secretly dream about?
  • What is their thinking system? (example: engineers - analytical, designer - creative)
  • Do they have their own language?
  • Who is successfully selling similar products and how?
  • Who fails and why?

As a result, you get several characters with different unique needs that do not overlap - this is the character map, or the portraits of the target audience.

Portraits help:

  • Identify and take into account the general values ​​of the target audience when promoting a product;
  • Make up advertising text and materials so that potential customers feel that you are addressing them and your offer is for them; The principle is as follows: for each character - a separate offer, and for it, ideally - one landing page;
  • Choose advertising channels where you can catch the attention of target users.

What information is needed

Describe the clients in your own words on the experience of interacting with them (if not, it is better to delegate the task to the employee who communicates / communicated with the audience). Take a few days for this, so as not to be limited to templates and stereotypes, but to approach the question thoughtfully.

Then complete the portrait point by point. There is no universal set, they depend on what qualities of the audience are more important to you. They vary in different sources, but they mainly take the following parameters:

  • Gender and age;
  • Geography (if there are several options);
  • Income level;
  • Education;
  • Family status;
  • Interests, hobbies;
  • Problems, fears.

This knowledge will help predict consumer behavior and understand:

  • What problems will your product solve;
  • How the client will use it;
  • What conditions of purchase suit him;
  • What will positively affect the choice in favor of your company;
  • What will make you refrain from buying from you;
  • What the customer expects from the product.

Also, in order to trace in detail the path from the first touch to the order, it is useful to see live how the target audience behaves and what the target audience is talking about, to “get used to” her image. Or at least trace the behavior on the network.

Sources of information about target audience

Online chat logs

This is the honest opinion of users who want to buy a product. Pay attention to which words, phrases, questions, assumptions are repeated, which topics are most exciting.

Records of primary incoming calls

Examine the messages of leads and see what wording they use, what objections they have. This will help trace their decision-making logic.

The following methods are suitable primarily for beginners, however, they will also work for "experienced" ones. Check if your idea of ​​target audience matches reality.

Reviews and testimonials

It is social proof that also allows you to collect data for quantitative research and learn the language of your audience.

There are special sites - "otzoviki": Yell, Irecommend.ru, Otzovik.com, etc.

Quote from Otzovik.com:


Things that a real buyer noted as important to themselves are marked in red.

Social networks, blogs and forums


Look also at the competitors' social media pages - clients sometimes ask questions, from which one can guess about their complaints and wishes. Plus, social media is a complete set of information about any audience.

Explore what both fans and haters have to say on topics of interest to you.

If you didn’t find the desired topic on the forum or in social networks, you can purposefully create your own topic in the discussions. I want, they say, to buy [the name of the product or service], advise how to choose. The main thing is that this is an open question that cannot be answered in monosyllables.

One of the features of the service is to understand what else the target audience is "breathing". Similar queries will tell you about this:


The following example shows how to promote courses. of English language: for whom (beginners, children), why the audience is going to study it (intensive course - we can assume that for travel or work) and in what way (Skype, tutor).


Facebook Audience Insights

We get charts by gender and age:


Also - "Marital status", "Education level" and "Position":



Using these charts, you can study the audience of your competitors.

There is also a “Lifestyle” diagram, but it can only be built if in the “Location” field one of the options is USA.


Google Trends

This tool shows in which months the demand for a particular service is growing, and in which regions it is stronger. Are you sure you know exactly the peaks of seasonal activity for your product? Take a look at Google Trends to see the real picture.


All these sources give an understanding of what customers pay attention to when choosing in the first place.

And, of course, hypothesize. For example, by search suggestions. Use your own experience. The more detail you take into account in a portrait, the higher your chances of creating a sentence that hits right on target.

How to make a character map

Think of names for the characters - most often this is a generalized characteristic (pensioner, bore, optimist, hard worker) that determines behavior to the greatest extent.

Describe what each character wants to use your product for, what problems it will solve. Imagine his expectations (how he sees your product ideally) and the criteria for making a decision.

Please select promising groups that you are going to target and decide what to offer them in your ads / website.

Example

We've identified four characters and guessed what benefits they will attract.

Note: the specified characteristics by sex and age are conditional. More specific categories are important when setting up targeting. They can be determined using analytical systems.

1) Schoolchildren.

These are students in grades 5-11. Lazy, it's hard to get them to sit down to their lessons. Alternatively, there are not enough basic lessons to master all the nuances of the language. The interested party is the parents. They also pay for the training. Therefore, we consider all points from their perspective and indicate their socio-demographic characteristics.

it married couple with an average household income and 2-3 children. They care about their future, try to give a good education.


According to their expectations, we can offer the offer “Improve my English before the exam? Easily! Just a couple of hours a week. "

  • “Our teachers know: every child is talented, you just need to find an approach to him and arouse interest”;
  • “Do you doubt the result? Read the reviews of dozens of satisfied parents ”;
  • "If you don't like it from the first lesson, we will return the money."

2) Dreamers.

Audience 20-30 years old. These are both students and older people (especially in creative professions).

Above average income. They love music, art, literature, cinema. There are no problems as such, they live for themselves and their pleasure, they are looking for inspiration.

In particular, they are planning to move to another country in the future, or have simply dreamed of visiting for a long time.


Suggestions are suitable for them:

  • “Learn to read Shakespeare in the original”;
  • "Favorite films in the original without subtitles";
  • "How to understand what this beautiful song is about."

Since these comrades are fickle and it is difficult to interest them in something for a long time, they may have doubts “suddenly I don’t learn anything new”, “suddenly it’s not interesting”.

  • "How not to be afraid to ask for directions from a charming stranger / stranger."
  • As you can see, the characters' images are quite generalized.

    At this stage, you just need to understand that your audience is very "motley". Divide it into several groups; highlight the decision factors and objections for each group. Why people are buying from you and why they are NOT buying. What do they pay Special attention what they are happy about, what they are afraid of.

    Three available ways segmentation for contextual advertising and social networks... With examples and explanations.

    High conversions for you!

    Good day, dear friends! We have a very important topic on our agenda.

    Do you want to start a group in VK with an audience of thousands? Selling handicrafts? Or maybe you are planning to open an online store? Then this article is for you. We will talk about the target audience.

    Target audience (abbreviated as TA) is a group of people who are united common features and characteristics (gender, age, place of work, income, dreams). It is easy to persuade them to buy, because they themselves are interested in purchasing your product / service.

    Who cares about analyzing your target audience:

    • marketers;
    • entrepreneurs;
    • managers of contextual, targeted advertising on the network;
    • copywriters when writing sales texts.

    Anyone who knows how to work with target audience is always one step ahead of competitors.

    Population incomes are growing slowly, and there are more and more options for spending money. Hoping for a spontaneous purchase is like waiting for the weather by the sea.

    Agree that a lazy person who spends all the time in front of the TV does not need roller skates or a subscription to a fitness center. Of course, it is possible to pack, present any product like candy. But the results will be scanty, and much more will be spent on copywriters, advertisers and designers.

    Stay tuned to find out where to find your client, how to work with him.

    What is the threat of the lack of target audience?

    Many entrepreneurs do not take planning seriously, they try to sell goods to everyone, and not to the target audience. This is a gross mistake.

    The description of the target audience is useful for:

    • marketing plan,
    • unique selling proposition,
    • writing articles for a product or store,
    • design work.

    For clarity, I will give an example of a bad description of the target audience and a good one. Let's take a washing powder and ask ourselves the question: "Who uses it?"

    Bad answer: "Women 22-60 years old."

    Where did we go wrong? Let's figure it out.

    We did not take into account the properties of the product. It is important to consider whether it is expensive or cheap. famous brand or unknown for what type of laundry.

    Let's say our powder is an economy class, a new brand, for washing machines, eats away stubborn stains.

    We describe the target audience as follows: “Women 23 - 50 years old. Housewives, married, have children, do not want to spend all the time washing, clothes often get dirty, get tired of homework”. Of course, this is not enough. But selling a pack of powder with such a description is easier. We don't take data from the ceiling - we conduct research, polls, observe people in real life.

    What is the threat of a vague characteristic of the target audience:

    1. A lot of spending on the advertising budget. About 70% of funds will be wasted.
    2. Failure of the product in the market, low competitiveness.

    An ideal target audience is an audience that:

    1. Wants to purchase your product / service. People with gas heating no electric heaters needed.
    2. Has enough money to buy. It is inappropriate to open an elite alcohol store near communal apartments.
    3. Accepts advertisements. Some people do not believe in commercials, articles, even when they just inform about the product. Others fundamentally don't buy promotional products.

    What is target audience for business? This is a way to increase sales at the lowest cost.

    What types of target groups are there?

    People are different. It is important to understand this and take into account when defining the target audience.

    At the planning stage, it is important to decide which market segments you will be working with. There are two of them in marketing:

    1. B2B - wholesale purchases, cooperation with a legal entity. In English - "business to business", which means "business for the sake of business."
    2. B2C - retail for final consumption. It is called “business to customer” in English. Translated as “business for the consumer”.

    If you are targeting B2C, you will face difficulties. This market segment is less stable and changes several times a year. New products appear, the level of the customer's income decreases or increases - all this affects the portrait and behavior of the consumer.

    It's easier with B2B. Client - a legal entity that buys goods in bulk for resale or the needs of their company. Fluctuations only occur during a financial crisis.

    The target group consists of 2 parts:

    1. The core is the leading target audience, which decides where to buy goods, in what quantity and when.
    2. The minor group are people who participate in the purchase “without desire”.

    Let me give you an example. The women want a fur coat, but they ask the men to buy it. They are the core. Husbands, boys, fathers who pay for the goods are a secondary target audience.

    An expanded and narrowed target audience are also two varieties. Perfume lovers are an extended group, French perfume lovers are a narrower group.

    We are looking for information to analyze the target group

    Keeping track of your customer as they walk from store to home is not best idea... We will do it professionally. Namely, we will connect websites, social networks to work, ask around people on the street.

    The questionnaires have sprung up like touchscreen phones. If you want to know more, write in the comments. In the meantime, I will give you links to resources where you can conduct a survey, find your consumer.

    We publish the questionnaires here:

    • Simpoll- the demo version is designed for 3 profiles, if you want more, you will have to pay 150 rubles. monthly;
    • Survio- they give 5 questionnaires for 100 questions for free, to expand the functions you will have to pay a tariff (1,800 rubles = 100 polls), you can embed it on your website;
    • Survey forms from Google - free, available after registration;
    • iAnketa.ru - ordering surveys is paid, the cost varies from 500 to 2,000 rubles;
    • Testograf.ru - polls can be created for free without a limit, the price of the premium package is 1,390 rubles. The site is optimized for tablets, phones;
    • SurveyMonkey.ru - 10 polls per 100 respondents are given trial, then at a rate of 1,790 rubles. 30 days in advance, you can add to your page, send invitations by mail.

    When there is not enough experience, problems arise with the preparation of the questionnaire and analysis. It is not clear what questions to ask, how many there should be. Don't worry, there are ready-made survey forms:

    • test of a new product, brand- helps to find out the opinion about changes, for example, the appearance of different tastes in tea or a change in packaging design;
    • service level test- you will find out how consumers relate to the quality of service of your company;
    • test for loyalty to your website / blog- the information will help you understand how many times your page has been visited, what you liked and disliked, how to improve the site.

    For lazier users who have a client base, I suggest automatic service from Yandex... Based on e-mail addresses and accounts in social networks, the program will tell everything about the current target audience.

    Useful information for webmasters from Google will help to competently optimize the site for beginners.

    Don't want to spend money on surveys? Then use social media. Publish your polls in groups or analyze other people's.

    Unique monthly traffic - 27 million people. 2 million of them publish posts daily. The female audience predominates - 58%. The main age group is from 23 to 45 years old (63%).

    • Twitter

    The total number of users is 8 million. Users posting records every day - 1 million. There are more men than women (52.4% and 47.6%, respectively). Traffic comes more often from Moscow, St. Petersburg, Novosibirsk region.

    • Livejournal

    He's still alive. 110 thousand bloggers live here with their creativity, dead accounts - 12 million - a terrible figure. There are more male audience than female audience (54% and 46%). Bloggers are young. From 18 to 35 years old - about 2 million

    Summing up, we can say that St. Petersburg, Moscow and the Sakhalin region are the most “social”. Day and night, girls read news feeds on social networks.

    We define the target audience

    Before describing our audience, we must understand that it, as something generalized, has similar characteristics: age, behavior model, place of residence. At the stage of determining the target group, we do not delve into individual traits... Pay attention to what unites the group.

    What common features need to be analyzed:

    1. Social. We are interested in how the consumer interacts with society. Studying or working, married or single, where he lives and how much he earns. We need a lot of details, so it would be nice to find out the type of activity, specialty, the nature of the relationship with the partner (if any), the composition of the family.
    2. Demographic. The perception of the world is affected by: cultural values, nationality, gender, age. It is known, for example, that people over 50 years old are not prone to sudden changes. They are used to using the same brands and rarely try new ones.
    3. Psychological. and marketing formulas work best when we know character, habits, dreams, goals, life principles consumer. You can supplement the psychological portrait of the client with other features, conduct an in-depth analysis. It will be nice to know how the consumer relates to the price, whether he is ready to pay more for the sake of good quality or prefers economy class products.
    4. Behavioral. If this point is analyzed correctly, you can easily push the target audience to buy. You must understand why a person wants to buy a product, how important it is to him, whether he likes to experiment with different brands.

    This is already enough to begin to understand the client. But we will not dwell on the listed characteristics. We must learn to compose a portrait, work with it.

    Drawing a portrait: 20 important questions

    These questions usually begin the “selection round” of each survey. They determine the “entry” of the respondent into the target audience. If it enters, the poll continues, if not, it ends.

    We ask:

    1. How old are you?
    2. What's your gender?
    3. Where do you work?
    4. Are you full-time or part-time?
    5. Are there children in the family?
    6. How many people are there in the family?
    7. What is your monthly income?
    8. How much money is left after paying for utilities, buying food?
    9. You are married?
    10. Why would you like to purchase this item?
    11. How confident are you about your future?
    12. What do you do in your free time?
    13. You own house or are you renting a house?
    14. Where do you live?
    15. What goals did you set for yourself?
    16. Are you happy now? If not, what would you like to change?
    17. What is most important to you in life?
    18. Where do you see yourself in 2 years?
    19. What sites do you often visit?
    20. Are you studying? If so, to whom?

    The list is not unchanged. You can customize it for yourself.

    What will the car dealer ask? Will the client change the car, if yes - for which one, how many cars he has now, etc.

    How to determine target audience on the Internet? To find out how people feel about your product and what they like, use Yandex.Wordstat and Google Trends.

    Consider Wordstat. Enter the name of any brand or type of product and see the statistics of searches for Last year... You can narrow the range of analysis to one month or one week.

    For example, I just introduced “buy a blouse” for clarity. The results are detailed, suitable for both a marketer and SEO.

    In Google Trends, you need to click on "Query History" to see detailed statistics.

    Do not forget that the recognition of the target audience of the product can be at different levels, as well as the degree of involvement in the purchase.

    We segment the target audience

    Segmentation is the division of the target audience into narrow groups with similar characteristics. It helps to test, fix the attitude towards a product or service.

    The target segment is the most receptive group of people to buy. She purchases the product first.

    The 5W method will help us. It was developed by M. Sherrington, a consulting specialist. This is a 5-question questionnaire. It allows you to find out what the client is "breathing", how he thinks.

    We ask:

    1. What(we offer)? Wallpapering or leather chairs.
    2. Who(will use the product, make purchases)? A business woman who entrusts repairs to professionals, or a family who wants to change furniture in an apartment.
    3. Why(the consumer needs your product, what problem will he solve with it)? A young girl is tired of sleeping on a cot in a new apartment. She wants to relax on a soft double bed. It is important to take into account the needs of the client, focus on Maslow's pyramid.
    4. When(will the purchase be made, under what circumstances)? During a sale or holiday (internal factor independent of marketers).
    5. Where(will consumers buy the product / service)? On a website, a brick-and-mortar store, an online store, etc.

    Visualize your target audience. Attach a photo of your typical consumer, be it the plumber Vanya or the neighbor Lyuba.

    Having found out the attitude of the target audience to the brand, you can divide it into conditional subgroups:

    • Devotees. They use only your product / service, they are purchased from you.
    • Doubtful. More often they buy a product from you, but sometimes they turn to competitors.
    • Former. Were your clients, but switched to other brands.
    • Inexperienced. Previously, they were not interested in this product / service, they do not know anything about prices and brands.

    In each column, we indicate the percentage of the total CA. We take figures from polls and interviews.

    We are looking for a target audience from the opposite

    You do not know what kind of sales you will be engaged in, but you want to make good money? Do you need to expand your business? Then it is better to look for a target audience for profit.

    For example, you are simultaneously attracted by the wholesale of machinery and doors. You cannot make a choice, but you want to make money.

    At the planning stage, you scan all types of target audience, filtering out unpromising ones, and focus on demand.

    What do we take into account:

    • how much the consumer earns;
    • how much the consumer makes purchases per season;
    • how long will it take to purchase goods, sales;
    • how often the profit will be received.

    This is how you start a successful business and advance beyond your competitors.

    Examples of target audience analysis

    We have figured out how to describe a potential consumer. I will now sketch out a few examples for clarity.

    Example # 1: dark chocolate

    Bitter chocolate. We position the product as healthy. It helps to improve your mood. We conduct a survey, think about who will be interested in a product with such properties, put ourselves in the shoes of a potential buyer.

    1. Who buys: women 25 - 45 years old.
    2. Why: to pamper yourself, enjoy the taste, treat your friends.
    3. When: I want to take a break from work, have tea alone or with someone, watch a movie or TV series.
    4. Where: trade point at home, work, along the way.
    5. Income: varies from 10,000 to 20,000 rubles.
    6. Media preferences: watch TV, videos on the Internet, prefer entertainment content.

    Example # 2: Fitness Consulting

    Let's say we are a young fitness trainer who has decided to work remotely. For the first 2 - 3 months, you need to recruit at least 10 people, maximum 20. To do this quickly, we draw up a summary of the service.

    1. Service: making the menu proper nutrition and training regimen.
    2. Who orders: girls from 20 to 40 years old.
    3. What problems: discord in family life, it is difficult to recover from childbirth, it is a shame to appear overweight in a bikini, tight clothes.
    4. Why: want to attract male attention, show off their forms on social media during the beach season.
    5. When: dissatisfied with their figure, lack of male attention, self-esteem falls.
    6. Where: more often on the Internet, less often from fitness trainers.
    7. Income: an average of 25,000 to 30,000 rubles.
    8. Media preferences: YouTube video channels, social media monitoring.

    Example # 3: Selling sewing machines

    We sell electromechanical sewing machine costing up to 7,000 rubles. in the online store.

    1. Who: women 30 - 60 years old.
    2. Occupation: seamstresses or housewives.
    3. Why: to repair old clothes faster, sew new ones to save money.
    4. When: optional, broke old car or it doesn't exist at all.
    5. Where: online stores (at least 35%), offline stores.
    6. Family status: married / divorced, with children.
    7. Income: from 15,000 to 25,000 rubles.
    8. Media preferences: melodramas on TV, popular Russian serials, talk shows.
    9. Note: subscribed to "Vkontakte" and Odnoklassniki for groups about needlework, home economics. Most are conservative.

    I wrote a rough description of the target audience. It can be wider.

    How to attract the target group?

    When the data is collected, a long work with the target audience begins. It is necessary to prepare a good advertising material, calculate the audience gathering places, find and form channels of influence.

    Success - payment for the order, conclusion of the transaction; failure - the client turned around and left.

    From acquaintance with the product to purchase, the consumer goes through five stages:

    1. Product introduction... A person sees advertisements on TV, on the Internet, on billboards or in stores.
    2. Knows the brand and product well... The ad worked. She stuck in my head, a potential consumer is discussing it with friends.
    3. Loyalty... If a consumer needs a product / service, at the time of choice he will lean in your direction.
    4. Confidence... The person understands that you are offering him the best of the market assortment.
    5. Conversion. Potential client becomes real when you make a purchase.

    You can compose sales texts, shoot videos, taking into account these stages. It will also help to increase conversions.

    1. Start with triggers of fear, need, pleasure.
    2. Fight off any objections that may arise.
    3. Indicate the properties of the product, its benefits.
    4. Evoke emotion.
    5. Provide arguments so that the consumer justifies the purchase with logic.

    To recruit customers, you need to catch them. To do this, we must collect enough information. Find out:

    1. Where the consumer spends his day, when he has free time, where he likes to go.
    2. When and under what circumstances a customer might need your product.
    3. Where the client is before the need arises. Children's furniture and clothes are bought by those who go to the gynecologist, are discharged from the hospital, and attend courses for expectant mothers. There you can broadcast advertisements, hang posters, offer flyers, rent a space for a store.

    How to find and capture audiences using the internet? There are several effective channels:

    • email newsletter,
    • site maintenance,
    • contextual advertising,
    • SMM promotion in social networks,
    • targeted advertising,
    • content marketing,
    • banners,
    • teaser advertising.

    You probably have a dumb question: "How do I know which channel is best suited to my target audience?" The match index will help you. This is a formula by which you can calculate the strength of the influence of a particular type of advertising.

    Marketer mistakes

    Marketing mistakes are detrimental to sales.

    Analysts at BrightEdge found that over 50% of internet marketing content is ignored by users. Advertising campaign money is wasted.

    There are two main reasons:

    1. One-time search for target audience. Needs, tastes and attitudes towards brands are changing, so you need to update data on target audience at least once a year.
    2. Vague description of the target group. Men 25 - 35 years old - a bad portrait of the target audience. The fact that you remove from the zone of attention inappropriate people, the level of sales will not fall. But you will spend less money on advertising.

    Why do marketers keep making common mistakes? Many people lack knowledge and experience. Marketing is popularized, so even just “amateurs” do it.

    Don't want to be a teapot? Do you dream of writing sales texts with 100% result? With us you can go through, learn to write not only selling, but also informational texts.

    Conclusion

    Don't joke with target audience search. Irony will result in loss of money, death of business.

    Start thinking and describing the target audience even before the launch of sales. You do not have the opportunity to invite everyone for a cup of tea for a heart-to-heart conversation. Use the results of real polls, observe people, see statistics in Google and Yandex.

    On this I say goodbye to you. If you have any questions - ask in the comments. I would be glad to answer.

    If you want to learn the basics of marketing with us, subscribe to the blog. You will see new articles first.

    The golden rule of any business is to know and understand your client. For a successful product promotion, it is very important to find out who your target audience is, its wishes, and what can interfere with the purchase. You can learn about this and much more from our article.

    What does the term mean

    The target audience is likely and real buyers of the product. Under the influence of promotional activities, they make a choice in favor of this product.

    The target audience is not all people without exception, it includes a certain part of the market or a separate category of buyers for whom this product (service) is intended.

    Consider its types

    The heart of the target audience is the constant consumers of the product (service) who have a high purchasing power. It is they who contribute to the growth of product sales and provide a stable and good profit to the business.

    So, the following types of target audience are distinguished:

    1. The main audience and the secondary (indirect).
    2. Wide and narrow.
    3. Audience from the type of target group. Target audience in the field of business (B2B) and individual consumption (B2C).

    The first makes a decision to buy, is its initiator. That is, consumers independently form the demand for the product they need.

    The indirect audience takes part in the implementation, acquiring secondary importance. Because representatives of this type of target audience may not buy this product at all.

    Here are some examples of the target audience

    Let's consider both types using the example of providing services that entertain children, which will be the main target audience. Because they are the ones who will become users. The kids want, say, to jump on a trampoline, but are not able to pay for this fun. Then they resort to the help of parents who make a purchase (of a product or service) and thereby become an indirect target audience.

    To accurately determine the main and secondary audiences, you need to correctly distribute the roles: who will be the motivator for the purchase, who will be the person who gives the go-ahead for its implementation. Identify the influencer, buyer and end user.

    Let's take an example of purchasing a baby pacifier. The mother (main audience) will be the initiator of the purchase of the product and the person who will make the decision on the purchase. This also includes the grandmother, who can also act as an incentive to action and have a significant impact. But the father, who goes to the store to buy, will become a representative of an indirect audience. The end user will be a toddler who does not belong to any group.

    An example of a wider one is lovers of sweet pastries, and lovers of biscuit cakes are a narrow target audience.

    We have looked at examples of the target audience. Now it is clear how to recognize its types and highlight the essence.

    So, to summarize, the target audience is a certain community of people that is most likely to purchase your product. And before we proceed to further discussion of the topic, we will answer one important question.

    Do we need to know the target audience by sight

    Of course, because a complete representation of the target audience:

    • promotes more effective sales;
    • expands and improves the boundaries of the use of advertising tools, which are designed to convey information about the product to the consumer in the best way;
    • at the stage of drawing up a business plan, it makes it possible to make an accurate assessment of the size of the market, which will serve as the main aspect for a successful start and a profitable investment;
    • provides comprehensive information on the possible improvement of existing products and services on the market, on the creation and launch of new ones.

    It can be seen that the analysis of the target audience is very important stage when developing an advertising policy that cannot be shelved. This can lead to the loss of funds, buyers and part of the market. Therefore, it is extremely important to know your buyer in person, to take into account the wishes and requirements. How do you define your target audience?

    Definition, steps, methods

    We repeat, the target audience is a community of probable and indirect buyers of a product (service), united by similar parameters and indicators, signs of segmentation. Let's consider the main ones:

    • gender;
    • full age;
    • is married;
    • place of residence;
    • speciality;
    • education;
    • number of family members;
    • material wealth.

    The model for describing the target audience based on these characteristics will look like this: the fair sex is 30-40 years old, with good earnings and higher economic education, work in the management of state structures, living in a large city with a population of 500 thousand people.

    But using alone general characteristics is not enough to determine the target audience. As a result, it turns out to be vague, and it becomes difficult to decide on the choice of advertising methods of influence. It is also possible to get the wrong number for calculating market opportunities. Therefore, in order to reduce the scale of the number of potential buyers, it is necessary to use other characteristics and relationships between the components. This is nothing more than sharding. The more specifically the segment within the target audience is defined, the better the result will be from the promotions carried out aimed at these parts. You can use other criteria as well.

    We characterize the target audience on a psychological basis

    Based on these characteristics, it can be outlined:

    • by behavior (cheerfulness, sociability, leadership, ambition, and so on);
    • according to life preferences, social and social values, principles (attitude to nature, the struggle for ecology and cleanliness, etc.);
    • by life position, way of life, hobby, favorite occupation;
    • according to the behavior of the buyer from the moment of desire to the implementation of the purchase of the product itself;
    • by determining the place of purchase of the goods, the method of use;
    • in relation to the price;
    • by reason of choice and action prompting use.

    This is with regard to psychographic characteristics. Let's consider the description of the target audience in the B2B market.

    The following characteristics can be used:

    • type of activity, product range;
    • amount of workers;
    • sales volume for the year;
    • scale of production (local, national and international);
    • number of branches;
    • by whom the decisions are made;
    • sales of products and factors affecting it, for example, seasonal production;
    • price policy.

    These are the characteristics of the target audience. Let's note the following: the more criteria we apply, the more concretely the portrait of a potential buyer will emerge.

    You need to know that there can be several segments. But the target audience needs to be divided into segments, taking into account certain characteristics. It is necessary to work with each separately, using the appropriate advertising tools.