Who Is Your Target Market for Your Content and Where Are They?

Who will be receiving your content?

This is where most times we miss the mark. We do not know the target market we are sending or giving our content to.

One of the first things you need to know about your business to create amazing, engaging, and useful content is, who exactly is your target market?

Knowing who your target market is will ensure the content you develop more than anything else is useful to your audience. It can also help you create products and services easier.

To define your target audience, please answer these questions:

What Is Their Demographics?

Knowing your customer's sex, how much they earn, where they live, and these types of things are very important. If you aren’t sure, you can choose the audience you want to target by developing an audience persona that you believe you’d like to work with. If you already have sold products and or services then look to your analytics to find out your audience demographics.

What Are Their Values?

This can be harder to determine but it’s an important question because it will determine the type of people your target market wants to buy from. You don’t want to be fake, but if you want to attract a certain crowd you’ll need to ensure that you share their values and that it’s demonstrated by the content you share.

Where Do They Get Their Information?

This is sort of a “where do they hang out” question. Which publications do they read? What groups do they hang out in? Who do they look up to and follow on social media? This can help you find your audience faster by going straight to where they are to distribute the content you create rather than simply waiting for them to find you.

What Type of Content Do They Prefer?

Does your audience like written content, video, podcasts a combo of the above? Do they love infographics or something else? You may not be sure right away, therefore, you want to repurpose the content you create two different formats so that you can collect stats regarding which types of content your audience likes most.

What Are Their Problems?

If you know their problems you’ll have an easier time creating products, content, and solutions for them. You’ll be able to get to their level and talk to them as human beings and not just a faceless person. That’s going to make content creation so much easier.

When you answer these questions, you’ll have an easier time understanding who your target market is. This is the audience you’re going to create all your content for as well as every product and ever service for. You’ll also eventually create subsets of this audience (segmenting) which will make content creation even easier.

Now that you know who you target market is, how do we find them? Where are they?

This may seem like a strange question to ask.

Isn’t your audience everywhere? Well, no they’re not. The more you can narrow down your target market the better.

The reason is that when you’re creating content for your audience you want to have a specific person in mind so that you know who you’re creating it for. Once you know who they are, you really need to know where they hang out too. Knowing where they hang out will help you know where to spend your time.

• Social Media Platforms – There are many different social platforms that you can become involved with. However, you don’t need to be everywhere and you shouldn’t be everywhere. You should be where your audience hangs out. Which social platforms do they use? For example, food bloggers belong on Instagram for sure as does anyone involved with the fashion industry, cars, travel.

• Publications – What books, magazines, and publications do your target market like to read? If you know this information you can place ads in those publications or even write articles for them. Getting your name known via one of these publications will do wonders for your authority factor.

• Groups & Forums – Today, online is all about groups and forums, especially right now Facebook Groups. If you know where your audience is hanging out on Facebook you should be there. Don’t spam groups but join groups that your target market joins and become an open resource. They will contact you.

• Podcasters They Like – Who do they love to listen to? Can you become a guest on that show? If you can become a guest you’ll end up on their radar. This will work especially well if you can also offer a gift via a special landing page for that audience.  Have you been a guest yet on Stand Out Be You?  You can register HERE.

• YouTubers They Like – Today, you can advertise on YouTube including specific YouTube accounts. This is a great way to tap into an existing audience that is like your target market in a fast way. Make sure you have something to offer that they’ll respond to.

• Gurus They Follow – When you can find out who your audience respects and follows try to find a way to get that guru to mention you even if you must pay them to influence their audience. This is another shortcut to getting in touch with your target market.

• Events They Enjoy – There are many offline and online events that your target market probably attends and enjoys. Find out what these events are and make sure that you go to them. The biggest mistake for events is going to events that only colleagues attend. Go to events that your audience attends, make sure you have something to offer them so they get on your email list.

No matter where your audience hangs out, it’s imperative to figure it out.

It might take some trial and error if you’re not a member of your own target audience. You may need to research further to find out where they hang out.

One great tool to use to find your specific keywords being mentioned is to set up a Google Alert regarding the topic. You’ll then get information sent to your inbox that can help you find ongoing discussions by your target market that you can join.

How did you discover your target market? Please head over to the Facebook Group and let us know. Describe who they are below in the comments.

(If you still haven't joined the Content Challenge, you can do so here.)

Look forward to having you on the next lesson as we speak about why your content needs to have a purpose.

Remember to always Stand Out Be You,
Tequila