What's up brand builders Stephen Houraghan here at BrandMasterAcademy.com and in this video you're
going to learn how to identify your target market with this audience research process so you can
reduce the cost and increase the effectiveness of your marketing by delivering your brand message to
the people who need it most now when it comes time to marketing and branding knowing how to analyze
your target market is one of the first skills that you need to master after all no matter what the
business does without an audience it's irrelevant the goal of branding is to shape perceptions now
those perceptions live in the mind and those minds belong to your audience so let's dive
in and learn how to identify your target market now look every brand solves the problem of a want
or a need now whether you're selling a soft drink or providing legal advice the consumer of both of
these solutions have something in common they have a desire to experience an outcome whether that
outcome is refreshment or peace of mind when you begin to identify your target market you need to
first ask the question what group of people have the greatest desire to acquire the outcome that
our solution provides now this question is the starting point which aims to narrow your audience
from absolutely everybody to a specific group of people that represent your target audience
otherwise known as a market segment using a series of tools your goal is to narrow and refine until
you have a clear picture of who that audience is and this picture is formed as a detailed outline
of a fictional person or an audience persona who basically represents that group of people
who have the greatest desire to acquire the outcome of your solution with an audience
persona crafted in the right way you can develop a communication strategy to resonate with their
challenges and their pain points now in order to uncover this fictional person you need to know how
to analyze your target audience so let's dive in step number one define your market demographics
begin by categorizing your audience based on their circumstances with demographics now demographics
are just a fancy word for the most basic tool that we use when defining your target audience
the more you know about your audience's circumstances the more effectively you can
target them or communicate with them through your marketing efforts your demographics include but
certainly aren't limited to the likes of their age their race gender income occupation marital status
religion education and location to name a few now although many of these characteristics will have
little relevance really in how you communicate to them they all work together to paint a detailed
picture which becomes very very influential when developing a communication strategy
now if you don't have any of this information readily available social media provides a
treasure trove of information that you can hack now the engagement on your competitors social
pages will provide you with the exact profiles of the people who you're targeting where you can find
as much demographic information as you need now of course there are many different research platforms
that you can use that will gather this information for you the likes of statista or qualtrics but
really any engagement on your competitor social pages will give you the profiles
of the exact people that you're targeting which you can use to find their demographic information
and create profiles that way so it does take a lot more effort doing it that way or you
could go and use one of those resources that i mentioned before such as statista or qualtrics
but at the end of the day that information is out there it's out there it's online you just
need to roll up your sleeves and get it step number two uncover your market psychographics
now psychographic analysis is a little more challenging because the information you base
your analysis on is quite subjective when compared to the stat based demographics by analyzing your
audience's psychographics you get a window into their personality including their behaviors their
attitudes their opinions and their preferences as well and this is where you really start to get a
feel for who the person is behind that audience and these behavioral characteristics these human
characteristics that shape those individuals now after identifying your audience profiles
through demographics you can then dive into their likes their preferences and their behaviors by
analyzing preferences such as their sports their activities their interests their hobbies music
movies news political views food or restaurants and entertainment to name a few and when you start
to understand this side of their lives you can really start to understand the personality behind
the individual groups step number three develop your audience persona now using the information
that you gather from your analysis on demographics and on psychographics you want to begin building
your audience persona now you might find that your broader target audience can be further segmented
into specific group or otherwise known as market segments and you might want to create
individual audience personas for each of these segments now you can compile your information
in a simple spreadsheet or grab any one of those freebie buyer personas or customer avatars that
you'll find online and begin compiling all of your data and developing it your audience personas now
obviously if you're developing these for your clients you'd have your own custom design template
which you would then slot into the strategy document step number four map the customer
journey now once you have your detailed audience persona you then need to uncover the lives they
lead and the journey they're on until they reach that heightened point of desire for the outcome
now although this group of people will be on their own individual journeys all of these journeys have
many commonalities and all roads lead to the same epiphany and that epiphany is the realization of
the desire for that outcome now this realization is the point of the journey that the brand must be
most aware of because it's where they can resonate most effectively with the audience through emotion
from here the journey has a fork in the road one direction leads to the desirable outcome and the
other leads to an undesirable outcome forums and social groups they're a great place to find the
questions that your audience have in and around the outcome that you provide now look chances are
there might be hundreds of smaller challenges that contribute to increasing that desire
for the outcome that you offer and as a brand understanding these challenges and understanding
those progressive steps you can map out the journey to meet them where they are meet them
on the road and guide them to the safety of your solution step number five identify the
challenges and the pain points now the journey that leads your audience to your solution
is full of challenges as i mentioned before now these challenges are critical because they
increase that emotional tension and the desire for that outcome and overcoming these challenges bring
them closer to that outcome that they desire most which your brand can obviously help them with your
brand provides that outcome so giving them those stepping stones get them closer to that outcome
and if you're the brand that gives those stepping stones to them their believability and their trust
in your brand increases as well by identifying each and every one of the challenges that your
audience faces and then the related pain point to those challenges you arm yourself with the tools
that you need to help them along the way whether through a piece of content a how-to video or
a little bit of inspiration you can help them along the way and become part of their journey
long before you put your offer in front of them again forums groups and anywhere your audience
asks questions in and around the solution that you offer is your go-to for identifying these
challenges and step number six uncover your audience's emotions through reviews now your
customers will have two very distinct states in relation to the outcome that they want to achieve
now in order to get to that outcome they'll go through an experience and the end result will be
either an outcome that they're happy with or an outcome that they're unhappy with now these two
states are known as the before state and the after state and by identifying the emotional connection
they have before the solution you can uncover very powerful emotional insights into their fears
and desires now their desires represent the outcome that they most want while their fears
represent the outcome that they want to avoid now uncovering this information is critical because
it's from these emotional connections these fears these desires that you can build a communication
strategy that will resonate with who they are and what they're going through review sites are
a window into these emotions positive reviews represent desired outcomes and negative reviews
represent feared outcomes now of course knowing how to analyze your target audience through review
sites is so powerful because these reviews are often highly charged with emotion and they bear
the fears and the desires that you can gather so how do you use target market segmentation well
different people experience problems in different ways once you analyze your audience and define who
they are you might find that this group could be further categorized based on their journeys
emotional involvement level of desire or consequences among other things now each
of these groups are possible segments that you can target more specifically by developing an audience
persona for each one of these market segments you can develop more specified communication
strategies to resonate with them on a deeper level now look connecting with your audience is about
specificity if you can make them feel that you're speaking directly to them and about their exact
situation as opposed to speaking to a broad group of people you're far more likely to
resonate with them knowing how to analyze your audience is a highly critical skill that every
brand builder must develop as you enhance your processes and techniques you begin to uncover
more effective insights that you can use in your brand development processes now the next video up
here will help you dive deeper into brand strategy but before you click on that video make sure you
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