Target audience
The target audience is the intended audience or readership of a publication, advertisement, or other message catered specifically to the previously intended audience. In marketing and advertising, the target audience is a particular group of consumer within the predetermined target market, identified as the targets or recipients for a particular advertisement or message.
Businesses that have a wide target market will focus on a specific target audience for certain messages to send, such as The Body Shop Mother's Day advertisements, which were advertising to children as well as spouses of women, rather than the whole market which would have included the women themselves. Another example is the USDA's food guide, which was intended to appeal to young people between the ages of 2 and 18.
The factors they had to consider outside of the standard marketing mix included the nutritional needs of growing children, children's knowledge and attitudes regarding nutrition, and other specialized details. This reduced their target market and provided a specific target audience to focus on. Common factors for target audiences may reduce the target market to specifics such as 'men aged 20–30 years old, living in Auckland, New Zealand' rather than 'men aged 20–30 years old'. However, just because a target audience is specialized doesn't mean the message being delivered will not be of interest and received by those outside the intended demographic. Failures of targeting a specific audience are also possible, and occur when information is incorrectly conveyed. Side effects such as a campaign backfire and 'demerit goods' are common consequences of a failed campaign. Demerit goods are goods with a negative social perception, and face the repercussions of their image being opposed to commonly accepted social values.
Defining the difference between a target market and a target audience comes down to the difference between marketing and advertising. In marketing, a market is targeted by business strategies, whilst advertisements and media, such as television shows, music and print media, are more effectively used to appeal to a target audience. A potential strategy to appeal to a target audience would be advertising toys during the morning children's TV programs, rather than during the evening news broadcast.
Target market
A target market is a select group of potential or current consumers, which a business decides to aim its marketing and advertising strategies at in order to sell a product or service. Defining a 'target market' is the first stage in the marketing strategy of a business, and is a process of market segmentation. Market segmentation can be defined as the division of a market into its select groups, based on a variety of factors such as needs, characteristics and behaviours, so that the application of the marketing mix can be appropriate to the individual. Segmentation of the market gives a business the ability to define its target market for its product or service, and apply the marketing mix to achieve the desired results.Determining the target audience
A business must identify and understand its target audience if their marketing campaign is to be successful. It allows the business to craft their products or services to the wants and needs of customers, in order to maximise sales and therefore revenue. A successful marketing campaign connects with consumers on a personal dB level, which will help the business to develop long-term relationships with customers.Not all consumers are the same. Determining the target audience is key to reaching the loyal and high-profit customers, in order to ensure a return on investment. To effectively determine the brand's target audience, marketing managers should consider the three main general aspects of target audience grouping: demographics, psychographics and consumer lifestyle.
To determine the target audience, the business must first identify what problem their product or service solves, or what need or want it fulfills. The problem must be one that consumers are aware of and thus will be interested in solving. For example, a problem could be a lack of cheap air-conditioning units on the market. If a business enters the air-conditioning unit market selling their units at a low price, consumers who couldn't afford the other air-conditioning units will see this as a solution to the problem and will purchase the new units. The problem that the business solves can be identified by searching for similar businesses or business ideas. If the search is unsuccessful, then there remains a problem that the business can solve.
The business must determine what kind of people are facing the problem they identified. This is based on consumer demographic, psychographic, geographic information and behavior.
Demographic information
Demographic information involves statistical aspects of consumers such as gender, ethnicity, income, qualification and marital status. Demographic information is important to the business because it gives a basic background of the customers the business is intending to aim its marketing campaign at. This helps them to judge on a basic level how to communicate effectively with who they have identified as the target audience. Demographics are key because they provide the foundation of who the business will be targeting. Demographics is statistical information that does not require in-depth analysis to provide an answer, thus a business would use quantitative methods of data collection. This tiny method will provide a statistical approach to identifying the target audience.Psychographic information
Psychographics is the use of sociological, psychological and anthropological factors, as well as consumer behavior, style of living and self-concept to determine how different market segment groups make decisions about a philosophy, person or product. Psychographic information can be utilized by the business to gain a deeper understanding of the consumer groups they intend to target, by analyzing the more intimate details of the consumer's lifestyle and thinking processes so as to gain an understanding of their preferences. Things like financials, interests, hobbies, and lifestyle will all be filtered by the business to create a target audience that will, in theory, be open to the product and will connect with the business through a marketing campaign aimed at them.Behavioural information
Consumer behavior is the purchase decision process, what influences their purchase decision, what purposes they use the purchased good for, and their responses and attitudes to the product. Cheng et al. explains that consumer's behavior is affected by messages sent by the business, which in turn affects their attitudes towards brands and products, and ultimately what products they choose to purchase. When determining their target audience, a business must examine consumer behavior trends. Behavioral trends could include online purchasing instead of in-store purchasing, or modern consumers purchasing a new smartphone annually. They should then select a segment of consumers whose behavior aligns with the functionality and purpose of the product to be the intended audience for a marketing campaign. Target consumers can be identified by businesses as they will indicate that there is a demand for the product by their behavioral signals. Their interests, hobbies and past purchase activity provide a platform on which the business can base their marketing campaign.Geographic information
Geographic information is essentially where the customer is located and is vital to the business when they are determining their target audience. This is because customers located in different geographic areas are going to encounter different things that influence their purchase decisions. These can be any number of things, including resources, cultures, and climates, which can cause their behavior, psychographic information and influences to differ with those who are in same demographic but are geographically distant. For example, a city or area with a heavy drinking culture will encounter high liquor sales, whereas a city or area with a minimal drinking culture will experience low liquor sales. Each country has consumers of the same demographic, but due to the cultural influence of the geographical area, their purchase decisions are different.A basic example of a consumer profile is: males aged 35–40 who live in the US and have a university-level education, are a sociable extrovert from a top-middle economic class and live an active lifestyle, lives in Nashville, Tennessee and makes small and frequent purchases without considering the product's brand. This profile will allow the business to tailor their marketing campaign to attract specific consumers.
There are many methods of demographic, psychographic, geographic and behavioral data collection. There are quantitative methods, being statistical processes such as surveys and questionnaires, and qualitative methods, being in-depth approaches such as focus groups or comprehensive interviews. The different aspects of consumers are all essential to a business when it is planning a marketing campaign, as the information that the business gathers will determine what the most profitable target market for the campaign is, and how to reach this market.
The business must also look to their competitors to see what processes they are currently taking to try and solve the problem, and which consumers they are targeting. This will allow the business to get an idea of the type of consumer they will be targeting, and what the best way is to communicate with this type of consumer. This information can be used to allow the business to differentiate slightly from the competition in order to give them a competitive advantage once the marketing campaign begins.
Once the target audience has been identified, the business must then create content for the campaign that will resonate and effectively communicate with the consumer. Tracie Sherlock emphasizes that the level of content with which the business will be reaching the consumer should be of high quality, as 92% of marketers specify that high-level content is valuable for a campaign. This high level of content will help consumers to connect on a more personal level with the business and contribute to a successful communication process from the business to the target audience and then feedback from the target audience to the business.
Once the business has gathered data from consumers about their demographic, psychographic, geographic and behavioral situations, they can analyze this and use it to identify a rough target audience. This can be refined by the analysis of competitors' processes and targets, allowing the business to formulate a more segmented target audience. Then the segmented target audience can be refined into a clear objective of which consumers the business is targeting, thus creating the specific target audience for a marketing campaign.