“If you and I both owned a hamburger stand and we were in a contest to see who could sell the most hamburgers, what advantages would you most like to have on your side to help you win?” was a question that famous copywriter Gary Halbert loved to pose to his copywriting students, to which he got varying answers.

Some wanted access to the best meat for making burgers.

Others wished for sesame seed buns. 

A few wanted nothing but a good location. 

Some wanted the advantage of selling at the lowest prices.

Unfazed, Gary would swear he could beat them hands down in the contest even with these seeming advantages—and all he needed to do this was the advantage of having a starving crowd. How profound!

The same is true for business today. 

You could have the best products and services, the finest location, and even the most competitive prices on the market. But without a starving audience craving for what your business offers, it is as good as dead. 

Identifying your starving crowd, commonly described as your target audience, is one of the most crucial marketing steps for you as a business owner. It is a far better approach than casting a wide net, hoping to land the right clients by chance. 

This step will require you to answer questions like:

Who is my target audience?

What are their goals and interests?

What keeps them up at night?

Where do they hang out?

What does ‘happy ever after’ look like for them?

And most importantly, what can I do to make their lives better?

Who is your target audience? 

Let’s say you sell products or services to help babies between 3 and 6 months sleep better at night. Who would your ideal target audience be?

Toddlers? Heck no!

Teenagers in high school? Nope!

Young couples without children? You bet not!

Empty nesters? Certainly not!

Your ideal target audience would be nursing mothers and fathers or caregivers fed up with watching their babies cry non-stop through the night— people who would give anything to see their newborns get a good night’s sleep. That would be your starving crowd. 

Your target audience is the most likely consumers or users who would benefit from or be interested in your products and services. They are typically defined by data such as age group, gender, ethnicity, education, location, buying habits, and purchasing power. 

Why is it important to know your target audience?

The answer to this question is pretty obvious at this point. If your business goals include traffic and lead generation, engagements, conversions, and sales, it is paramount that you identify the starving crowd your business aims to serve. 

Marketing without identifying your target audience is like wearing a blindfold and attempting to appeal to a tough crowd. For starters, You can’t see them. You don’t know who they are or what they want. At best, you’ll resort to guesswork, a recipe for errors and, worse, failure.

If you are thinking of an important reason for identifying your target audience, well, here are five: 

• It helps create a connection between your brand and those it serves.
• It fosters better and more streamlined communication.
• You have a better idea of the things that resonate with them.
• It is easier to create engaging content that grabs their attention.
• It equips you to create exceptional customer experiences.

Tips for Identifying Your Target Audience

If you have read up to this point, hopefully, you are inspired to identify your target audience and do all you can to serve them better. Keep reading, and you’ll learn three tips for identifying your target audience.

1. Study your products and services.

One of the easiest ways to pinpoint your target audience is by studying your products and services. This process will involve getting into the intricate details of your product features and service offerings—leaving no stone unturned.

A few examples of areas to cover when studying your products and services include: 

• Specifications and functions.
• Features and derived benefits.
• Each derivable value.
• The needs they solve.

One valuable tip for learning about your products and services is to use them for some time. That way, you get first-hand knowledge of what they do—and don’t do— and the needs they meet.

By understanding your products and services and the needs they solve, you can identify the people who could benefit a thing or two from them. 

2. Dig into your existing clients.

What better way to identify your target audience than to assess your existing clients? 

Think of it this way. The people who already use your products and services have identified a need and found a solution in your brand. Can you see how this makes them the perfect representation of potential target audiences?

You may or may not know a lot about your existing clients. Whatever the case is, it is a good idea to conduct surveys now and then. Using surveys, you can learn your clients’ demographics, language, spending patterns, interests, and pain points. You also learn what they love about your products and services and how they meet their needs—this is handy for crafting your unique selling propositions.  

3. Utilize your analytics

More often than not, you’ll find your target audience lying in plain sight. Your social media and website analytics let you access metrics like demographics—like age and gender, traffic sources, preferences, traffic sources, and user behavior—like page engagements.

It is crucial to examine your analytics occasionally for several reasons. For starters, it clearly shows you the type and quality of audience your content attracts. Say you spend most of your time creating content and marketing to middle-aged men, thinking they are your target audience. By checking your analytics, you may discover that your content and marketing appeal more to women in their thirties. Without doing so, you may go a long time pushing your products and services to the wrong audience.

Another reason to examine your analytics is that not only does it show you who visits your website and social media pages, but it also shows you how they engage and interact with your brand. 

Some tools to check your social media and website analytics include Google Analytics, Hubspot, Sprout, and BuzzSumo.

4. Spy on your competition

If your competition sells similar products and services to yours, chances are they have put in the work to learn who their target audience is. Thankfully, you can launch a spy operation to gather insights from them. 

You can spy on your competition in several ways, for the most part, using analytic tools like Semrush and Ahrefs.

Find your starving crowd.

Let’s rephrase Gary Halbert’s famous question:

“If you and your competition were in a contest to see who could sell the most products and services, what advantages would you most like to have on your side to help you win?” 

Better quality of products and services?

A nicer location?

More competitive prices?

While these are good and essential, your best bet is to have a starving crowd hungry for the products and services. 

As you improve the quality of your products and services, you should also work on finding your starving crowd— your target audience. And when you do find them, do all you can to give them the best experience, including creating the right content that appeals to their needs and interests.

Want a copywriter who understands the concept of target audiences to join your team? Reach out to us at The Fourth Writers today.