Tell us if this sounds familiar: you own a clothing line specifically for jeans and denim clothing. You’re meeting with someone who’s going to help you out with your new website as the launch pad for your business, and then they ask this question: “Who do you serve?” Without a beat, you cheerfully reply, “Everyone! That’s because everyone wears jeans!”
Now, this is where we have to pause and reflect: does everyone wear jeans? We’d argue that that’s not actually 100% true. Certain demographics and target audiences do wear jeans, and we know that’s who you want to market your product towards…but you need to know who exactly.
Yes, we know full well you as a business owner want to sell your service or product to everyone, man or woman, teen or senior. But you have to find your ideal target audience, especially for your business’s website and all your future marketing campaigns. Here are some tips on how to find that audience when in fact you serve ‘everyone’.
Tip 1: Accept that, no, you actually can’t serve everyone
The reason we use this tip is simple: not everyone is remotely the same. We’re talking about persona, we’re talking about interests, we’re talking about age…we’re talking about everything that a certain ideal buyer would be for companies. And the one thing we know you need to do is understand you need to be specific about who you serve.
To get a better picture, let’s use our own company as an example, V3 Media. Yes, we know the impact and power behind having a great website for your company, but that’s because we’ve already identified who we serve: business owners, whether they’re starting out, or they’re a mom and pop company looking to go online, or they’re well-established and need their brand rejuvenated. Everyone of these specific business owners needs a website, but notice how we’re not saying certain things like age; that’s because we understand that some entrepreneurship has no age limit.
The most well-known companies we know of are also thinking along these lines. Take Levi, since we’re sticking to the jeans example; originally their target audience consisted of men ages 15-25, but since their ‘wide leg’ campaign a few years back, they’ve expanded their lineup of products to sell to teens and youth. Notice how specifically we described their audience; this is exactly what you need to do in your case, even if you sell to “everybody”. Obviously, you’re going to have to make some choices, which brings us to our next tip.
Tip 2: Find out who you do serve
You can go about this in a number of ways. One of the easiest is to access Google Analytics (if you’ve set an account up, at least…if not, this is going to be difficult) and then navigate to demographics, cities, and other areas inside of that program where target audience details may apply. From there, you can inspect user details such as geographic areas and, again, demographics to see who’s visited your site the most often.
If you don’t have a GA account, you really should (and you should start here at our blog post). Other means of finding your target audience are a little more traditional and require some brainstorming, but these are basic steps you need to take for your company. You especially need to do the next step if you want a website and a means to direct your web developers on how you want to market your website and how you want it to be used and seen by your audience.
Tip 3: Create a persona buyer
What’s a persona buyer? According to one source, it’s known as “a profile that represents your ideal customer”. Basically, this will help you solidify your image and ideas of the people you really want to market to. You need to sit down and really create a template, and leave no stone unturned in regards to details. Think of a name, job description, gender, age, goals, challenges (and how you can help with those), and so on. The more information you iron out, the better your profile will be and the more helpful it will become for you when it’s time to market your business.
The more details you give to this persona buyer the more clarity you have about who you want to serve your product or service to. In contrast, when you say you target ‘everyone’, you’re basically addressing a faceless mass of people. The reality is, everyone has a unique face, with personalities and interests that also make them stand apart…and knowing which ones will separate themselves from the crowd to come to your business will reap the most benefits.
As your company grows (because, of course, that’s a natural course for it to take), you may decide to create a few new persona buyers along the way. That being said, they still need to be more specific than simply ‘everybody’ as you may want to fall back to. And your website absolutely should appeal to these persona buyers because, as we mentioned, it’s the best starting point for marketing these days.
Now You Know…So What’s Next?
If you’re still stumped on what your persona buyers can be, talking to a professional agency can help, and some consultations are free for brand new clients. Afterwards, it’s up to you on where you want to go next, but we highly recommend a website for several reasons:
- A professional site can be customized according to your brand
- Lots of features are included to make your business stand out
- Opportunities galore for getting your message heard online
- Secure and safety precautions are always in place
If you need a website that can do all this, give us a call at V3 Media. We’ve helped many business owners over the past 2 decades to iron out their target audience while building their website, and they serve everybody…that you want to target.