How to Define Your Target
Audience
Reaching new audiences is easy with YouTube ads, but it all starts
by defining your target audience.
You’ll need to brainstorm and figure out which types of people
would be interested in your product or service. That will be based
on things like age, location, socio-economic status, educational
level, interests, etc.
Don’t be vague, either. “Men” or “Women” just won’t work. Think
more along the lines of “30-something career women with 2
children who are interested in starting a home-based business.”
The key is to narrow down your search as far as possible.
Market research, and being able to define your target audience in
a nutshell is important in understanding the customer and how
they are going to make purchase decisions.
Targeting a specific audience will also help your ad campaigns
reach the right people—those who will relate to your company’s
message and will be interested in your products or services.
Let’s say your company is marketing a new educational toy. Your
target audiences might be children who are X years old, parents,
grandparents, teachers, and maybe educational specialists.
Now you only need to target those people with your ads to find
some potential clients! You can insert your ad into anything from
a children’s video to an educational show for parents—whatever
you believe is not only relevant but likely to trigger a positive
response.
That way, you’d get exposure to different audiences for the
same basic ad. Of course, you’d want to tweak the ad to appeal to
different ages and demographics.
Remember that your target audience isn’t the same as your target
market.
Both are centered around dividing customers into different
groups to help you make informed business decisions.
A target market, however, is a specific group of consumers at
whom your company’s products and services are aimed.
A target audience defines that group using demographics,
interests, and buying history.
To put it another way, you can define your target market by
finding your target audience.
For example, if your target market is “young men aged 20-35,”
your target audience might be “young men aged 20-35 living in
New York City.”
You can then divide your audience into groups or further define
them using categories like the following:
Purchase Intention: a group of people looking for a specific
product or service who are looking for more information before
they purchase.
Examples would be consumers in the market for a laptop,
automobile, television, or item of clothing. This sort of
information is important so you can see how to better direct your
messages to your audience.
Interests: a group of people who are interested in the same thing,
like hiking or knitting or basketball.
Knowing this information helps you to connect with your
audience in a relatable way and figure out buyer behaviors and
motivation.
For example, customers interested in baseball memorabilia would
most likely be interested during baseball season, when they can
show off their purchases during the games.
Another example: if you discover that a large group of your
audience is interested in eating out, you could figure out a way to
work that into your ads and attract even more attention.
Subcultures: groups of people who identify with a shared
experience, like a certain music scene or entertainment genre.
People define themselves by these subcultures and you can use
those to better understand who you’re reaching out to.
For example, if you think of how a certain subculture relates to
your business—especially if you have a large potential audience—
then you’re reaching your subculture.
Think of how Netflix markets to its different subcultures (people
who like comedy, science-fiction, horror, and anime) using social
media accounts directed at those groups.
