One of the first questions I ask my clients before starting on their website design project is, “Who is your target audience?”. Who are we building this site for? The answer is almost always, in some form, “Everyone”. As much as we would all love for our websites and overall brands to cater to everyone, the truth of the matter is, that is just not possible. Why you ask? It is not possible because different people like and need different things; this truth is made evident in where people choose to spend their money. For example, one person may choose to shop at Whole Foods for their groceries, while another chooses to shop at Food Depot. Their choice to shop at one store over the other depends on a number of factors from mindset to budget to diet and simply preference; and even their preference can depend on factors such as how they were raised and their cultural background.
Trying to cater to everyone means you would have to know and understand the motives and mindsets of every personality type in order to successfully market to them all. The end result would be building “just another website” that is vague and unappealing to any particular person.
In a marketing fantasy world, our businesses and websites would cater to everyone! In reality, that is way too broad a segment for your website to make an impact on any particular person.
At this point you may be thinking, if everyone is different how can you choose a target audience? Even though we are all different, there are some common similarities that we can use to define and segment a target audience. This can be done through analyzing the demographics (external characteristics) and psychographics (internal characteristics) of your current loyal customers or the customers that you would like to cater to most. You can also look at your competitors who offer similar products and services to see what type of customers they cater to. Consider factors such as age, gender, marital status, occupation, geographical location, ethnicity, annual income, religion, hobbies, values, opinions and lifestyle. These are all things that we can have in common with someone else and can be used to categorize your customer base.
One of the biggest lies you can tell yourself, is that if you choose a specific target audience, you will miss out on business. In reality the opposite is the truth. Having a target audience allows you to reach way more people than you would without one. You will know where they are and what appeals to them so that you can structure consistent messaging and content on your website that speaks to their needs and desires, and motivates them to choose you over your competitors; this also applies to your brand overall. Lastly, having a target audience helps with SEO (search engine optimization) and allows your website to be more easily found by potential customers who are searching online for businesses like yours. Everyone, is way too broad a market to reach, so be specific and choose a target audience so that your brand and your website will connect you to customers who are looking for exactly what you offer.
Need help finding your target audience? Book a strategy session today.
Stephanie
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943-239-9480
stephanie@smaysdesigns.com
PO Box 1793 Conyers , GA 30012
Monday – Friday
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