Taking steps to grow your business is critical for entrepreneurs or freelancers. Getting there is impossible without understanding what a target audience is and what yours looks like. When you identify your brand's, you increase the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns, reduce the friction in marketing communication, and increase sales.
Here are four ways defining your target audience makes your brand grow.
4 Major Benefits to Define Your Target Audience
1. It helps you get more qualified leads.
A qualified lead is a person who's already interested in your brand's product or service because they understand how it solves their problem. Getting them to buy is much easier. An unqualified lead is someone who's not sure about your brand's ability to solve their problem – or
what
their problem is. Closing these sales is tougher because it takes more work to nudge them through your conversion funnel. When you market to those who are interested in your brand because they understand how it can solve their problems (read: your target audience), you're likelier to get qualified leads. When you get more qualified leads, you stand to grow faster because you can send those leads down your conversion funnel with more effectiveness.
"As a marketing organization, if you only serve up the MQLs (marketing qualified leads), then sales spends less time searching for those MQLs in their typical process, and more time selling to the golden nuggets you supply, thus closing more deals" (Alison Elworthy)
2. It helps you work with similar agencies/entrepreneurs to attract more business.
Working hand-in-hand with agencies or entrepreneurs that can complement your business products or services helps you grow. You offer more value to clients this way. You land bigger projects this way. You can charge more this way (because you're providing more).Teaming up with like-minded entrepreneurs is only possible if you define your target audience first. For example, if you offer
web-design services
and know who your target audience is, you'll realize that they're also looking for digital-marketing services that help their websites rank higher and earn more traffic. If you're a designer and only offer web-design services, you can work
with copywriters
or
SEO marketers
to offer a more well-rounded service to your clients that benefits them even more. As marketing firm
McKinsey & Company
writes:" Many of our clients now bring agencies in for integrated ideation sessions and expect them to work together as a team. "When you know your target audience, you can "team up" with similar agencies or entrepreneurs that complement your service offerings. This helps you grow better since you can attract more clients by offering more than you would with your own service alone.
3. It helps you become a thought leader.
A thought leader is someone who's regarded as an authority and influencer in their industry. When you define your target audience, you know which content your audience is hungry for. This empowers you to serve it up to them with more confidence than ever.
If you've defined your target audience as, for example, small- and medium-sized businesses, you can continually put out content that appeals to this audience. You can:
- Share social content that focuses on SMB stats and infographics
- Publish blog content that highlights case studies of successful SMBs
- Record videos that provide actionable information to SMBs
When you become a thought leader, your stock goes up because you're seen as someone who really understands what they're talking about. You get to command higher rates. You get more traffic to your site. Other sites and the media reference your brand. You get invited to speaking engagements. All these things make your brand grow bigger.
4. It helps you present consistent branding.
One of the keys to successful branding is consistency – you avoid confusion in the marketplace when your branding is the same across various channels like your site, social media, business cards, in-person talks, etc. And you'll be much more consistent if you know which target audience you're talking to.
For instance, if you know your audience is families, then your branding may well include humorous or fun-filled touches and references. That identity can then be presented across all your channels to ensure consistency, telling your audience that you're always there for them no matter where they go.
Branding services
give your business the opportunity to display this consistency. When you display a consistent brand to the world, you're likelier to grow because the marketplace understands what your brand is about (and isn't getting mixed signals from you).All entrepreneurs and businesses want to grow. Identifying your target audience is crucial to this growth.
Do you know your target audience? Have you explored making your brand grow by understanding them? Tell us in the comments below!
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