Improve Your Brand Reach Through Target Market Research

Personal Branding Blog — November 3, 2016

As a personal brand, your goal should be to attract right customers for your business who show a genuine interest in what you have to offer. But how do you discover your niche?

That is where focused research comes in to collect important data and provide you with a well-rounded picture of your target market, which becomes a specific client profile. Your information should be narrowed down and as specific as possible — a clear picture of what your ideal client looks like.

Once your brand achieves more clarity on your niche you will have more focus and waste less time in selling to the wrong audience. Here are a few ways to the formulate the right picture of your client:

How To Use Research to Find the Right Target Market

• Find out the personality and demographics of your community – Determining factors such as age, gender, location, level of education, occupation, income, and family structure are all important in the first part of your discovery process. This will provide a more personalized view of who your target market is and what compels them to make a purchase.

• Use data to determine the actions of your audience – Gain an accurate picture of who your potential customers are with both quantitative and qualitative data. While quantitative sees the big picture, qualitative takes a look at the behaviors and reasons. It is important to learn the lifestyle of your audience, known as psychographic data. This provides insights such as things they like to do in their free time as well as their personal habits and where they make purchases.

• Go to the right online sources for research – There are many different places your target audience could be engaging in including social media, blogs, Q&A websites, and offline events. Social media especially is a great tool to learn the conversations of your community and how they perceive your brand and the competition.

• Solve your target markets’ problems – The pain points are of your community are well defined in their communication and purchasing history. With this information in hand your brand can offer the right solution that meets their exact needs in a meaningful way. Research allows you to pinpoint these issues ahead of time so that you can create the ultimate customer experience that produces brand ambassadors.

After a careful, focused strategy your brand can create a detailed profile description of your target market, which will help you see who your audience truly really is. This is especially beneficial when communicating with them online and creating products or services that cater directly to their needs and desires.

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