One of the most intimidating steps for business owners when it comes to advertising on social media can be having to find their target audience. The good news is that the work will be well worth the investment, as targeting helps ensure that you are getting the highest ROI for your social media advertising dollars. And, once you get this step done, it requires little more than a yearly or twice-yearly checkup to ensure you aren’t leaving any new possibilities out.
What is a Target Audience?
In a nutshell, a target audience is the group of people most likely to be interested in your product(s) or service(s). Your audience is likely to share some common traits that you can target in order to try and get your ads in front of the most relevant people possible. So why should you define your target audience before you start running ads?
- Focused advertising is more effective advertising.
- Your money will be spent on more relevant users.
- It helps you to be more purposeful in your branding.
- You can develop messaging that resonates more powerfully.
Don’t Know Where to Start? Try Your Existing Audience
When starting on the process of building a target audience for social media, the best place to start is the audience you already have. Your goal is to figure out who is most likely to engage with your content on social media, and gain a better understanding of who they are and what they like. Here are some questions that you can ask yourself:
- Who is your current audience?
- What kind of information are they looking for?
- Where do they get this information?
- What do they like to talk about?
- What brands do they already trust?
Next, Define the Benefits of Your Products/Services
Once you have built your target audience, your next step will be to figure out how you can provide them with information and solve their pain points with your products/services. In other words, what value does your business have to offer consumers? Being able to define this is the key to making your target audience data work for you, as it means you will have a better understanding of how to create ads that resonate with your audience. Another way you can dig into this is to see what your competitors are doing. Take a look, and ask yourself:
- Who are they targeting?
- How are they reaching their audience?
- What do you see they are doing right?
- What might they be doing wrong?
- What are they using their ads to emphasize?
- What kind of tone are they using?
- How much engagement are they getting?
Now that you have these insights and data about who you should be targeting, it’s time to put this information into action. Try A/B testing to see what time of day or messaging is more effective. Create content to reach people in every stage of the sales funnel. And remember, you can be more direct with your target audience because you know that they already have an interest in what you are offering.
A Little Research Makes Your Ads More Effective
When it comes to advertising on social media, having great graphics and snappy text is only half of the battle. If you really want your ads to be effective and get you the highest ROI possible, you’re going to have to put in the effort to do target audience research.
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