How Do I Identify My Business’ Audience?

Why is it important to know your audience?

• Why waste time communicating with someone else?
• Talk to people who you’re relevant to
• Every business exists to serve people; even if you’re B2B

What are mistakes businesses make with their audience?

• Thinking everyone is their audience; the more focused, the better
• Not fully understanding their audience; don’t make dumb assumptions
• Not staying focused on the audience; it’s not about you, it’s about them

How can we figure out who our audience is?

• Think about the people you serve? Who are your best customers?
• Figure out what they have in common; usually it’s the problem you help them solve
• Talk to some of them; learn about their motivations and preferences
• Look at your website users, social media followers, email subscribers
• List the demographic data; gender, age, location, income, occupation, family, etc.

What are the practical ways of staying focused on your audience?

• Creating audience personas is a helpful shortcut to processing this mass of information
• It focuses your attention on a specific character, rather than on statistics
• It’s OK to have a few different personas based on different audience segments
• Print these out and keep them visible as a reminder for who you’re reaching
• Think about the persona every time you write an email, social post, or blog
• But don’t overly generalize; keep meeting with people to keep it human