Most companies are chasing leads. If you find yourself here, it’s because you want to know how to sell online. This article was researched and optimised to increase the chances of it landing directly in front of you. Makes you feel kinda special, right? This is how most organisations with a digital offering operate.
When you’re in the business of driving leads, traffic isn’t really that important to you. Website hits don’t keep the lights on – unless you sell advertising space – most of the time it’s qualified leads and sales that you’re looking for.
When you’re selling to people, you need leads. But in a vastly crowded online space that is only getting more crowded by the day, how can you possibly compete for attention?
Audience targeting is one of the most effective ways to enhance your online presence. By understanding who wants to buy from you, you can refine your message and focus your attention on the avenues that will work the best.
If you’re selling stairlifts, your target audience probably won’t be on TikTok. And if you’re selling fast fashion, your audience is unlikely to be found reading the Financial Times. These are just examples, and of course, there are always exceptions.
Not all of your customers will fall within these neat little boundaries. But it helps to start somewhere.
Why identifying your target audience matters
Without a clear idea of your target audience, your marketing plans will suffer. If you decide that your product or service is relevant to anyone and everyone, then you won’t be able to refine your message. Your marketing efforts will be spread too thin, reaching few and converting even fewer.
When you understand who you are trying to speak to, you can modify your language for success.
When you know where your ideal customers spend their time, you can make sure your message appears in the right place.
When you know how they make purchasing decisions, you can give them the information they need.
And when you know what matters the most to them, you can dispel their fears and concerns from the outset.
Even if your product or service offers broad appeal, your marketing efforts will benefit from a more refined approach to targeting.
For example, home gym equipment will appeal to many different groups of people, but they will all use it for different reasons. The marketing message you give to a working mum trying to fit in a spin class before her kids get out of bed will be very different to how you sell the same equipment to an elite athlete creating a home gym.
As we’ve explained with this example, you can have as many personas as you want. What’s important is that you know how to identify them and what to do with the information once you have gathered it.
Start with assumptions
If you have a new product or service and no sales under your belt, you’re going to have to start with assumptions rather than hard data.
You can probably make some educated guesses about who your customers are, where they spend their time and how they make purchasing decisions.
You can use these assumptions to start building customer personas which will then feed into your marketing campaigns.
And once you know who you’re planning to target, you can start having conversations. Surveys and focus groups offer a great way to understand your ideal target customers better. You might find that the assumptions you have made are all wrong. This isn’t a sign that your methods aren’t working, it’s simply a sign that you need to return to your research and refine your approach.
Remember, changing your approach is not a sign of failure. Did you know that Airbnb started life as a way for conference attendees to find a cheap place to stay? They were targeting business travellers but soon discovered this wasn’t a sustainable model and expanded their targeting.
Make the most of tools available
Once you have your assumptions, it’s time to delve into the data. Luckily, it doesn’t have to be your own data because there are tools available to help you understand the customer journey.
The following free tools will help you to understand buying trends, reveal how your target customers make purchase decisions, and even tell you the terms they use to search. While not an exhaustive list, these tools are an excellent place to start.
Think With Google
This comprehensive digital marketing toolbox will allow you to explore trending ecommerce categories, discover where your audience spends their time online, and even identify international markets where there is a demand for your products. You can also use Google Trends to identify how popular topics are, which can be useful for informing social media and content marketing efforts.
SEMRush
Explore your own website or delve into your competitor’s data with the help of this SEO powerhouse. Even the free version will provide valuable insight about organic search traffic. Looking at your main competitors is an excellent way to get valuable insight about the type of search terms customers use to find what they are looking for.
Followerwonk
Social media listening is an excellent way to learn about the customer journey. This Twitter Analytics tool will allow you to learn more about your customers and how they identify themselves online.
Use the free “search bios” function to explore the content of the top 50 most relevant follower bios for your own company and your competitors. Put this information into a word cloud to spot the trends in how these users identify themselves.
Google Search Console
This tool is like the prequel to Google Analytics. It will show you which queries your website has appeared in the SERP for, so you can gain greater understanding of the search terms used that your website doesn’t yet convert into traffic.
Why is this helpful? This information can tell you where your website falls down, either because you don’t rank high enough for users to see it, or because users don’t yet trust that you can provide the answer to their query. And these people are your ideal target audience.
Expand your customer personas
You now have a rough idea of who you are trying to reach. Now it’s time to flesh out those profiles and bring detail to your plans. You should consider the following information:
- Who are they? Demographic information such as age and location is helpful. In a B2B context, you need to know their job title and how purchase decisions are made in the organisation.
- Why do they need your product or service? What problem can you solve for them? How will they use your product? Remember that this can vary between personas, so don’t limit yourself yet.
- What factors matter the most to them when making a purchase decision? Do they focus on reviews, are they driven by recommendations, or do they want to see research and data?
- How much do they already know about your product or service? Are you offering a better alternative to something they already use and know a lot about? Or are you introducing something completely new?
Test your theories
Now you have an idea who you are trying to reach, it’s time to put your theories to work. You can use a combination of long and short-term methods for testing your theories. You can use guest posting, on-site content marketing and PPC to test your theories.
Guest posting
Once you know who you are trying to reach and where they spend their time online, you can target them directly with helpful and insightful guest posts. Make sure your guest posts aren’t too promotional.
You should aim to educate your target audience about a topic that is related to your field, not provide an advertorial for your business. Most website owners will have rules about what you can and cannot include in your article.
Once the article is live, keep an eye on the comments and any social media mentions around the article. This can offer valuable insight into how your ideal target customers respond.
Content marketing
A content marketing strategy will help to build authority around your brand and generate organic traffic from search engines. A good content marketing strategy can bolster your SEO efforts.
Once you know who you are trying to reach, you can create content that answers questions you know they are asking. This is a great opportunity to explore the language you use and modify it for your customer personas.
PPC
PPC is also a highly effective way to test your theories. You can test your targeting and your message at the same time. Your PPC campaigns will also provide much-needed data that will feed back into your personas.
The keywords you target will vary depending on the type of audience persona you are trying to reach. This is why it will be helpful for you to know the terminology your ideal customers use when talking about your services. These terms will help to inform your keyword strategy.
Refine and revisit
Your customer personas are not set in stone. As your company evolves, revisit this important research and refine your personas. As your understanding of your customers improves, you can feed this information back into your personas to create a more comprehensive marketing guide.
