Always know your audience; the audience is whoever you want to join you on your journey, or whoever you are marketing to. The best thing you can do is build an idea of who your audience is. It’s important to have a clear understanding of who you are trying to send your message to, and what your message is.
Who Is Your Customer?
You may not think of the people who follow you on social media as customers, but they follow you for a reason! For them, you solve a certain problem or make them feel a certain way. Emotions are key here; they like you and are compelled to consume your content because it does something for them on an emotional level. Thus, this is an important question, but too broad. A customer has many parts to them. That being the case, we have to break down the customer into smaller parts, with these questions.
What Do They Want?
The first question is what do they want? Can your product solve their problem? This is the most fundamental question, but that alone is not enough. Your product may solve their problem, but you can’t connect with them. Big companies like Apple or even just celebrities need to connect with people so that they support them. Big companies like Apple connect with people by making them feel awesome for buying their product; the marketing acts as a status symbol for them. For celebrities, they show that they’re grateful to their fans, and make the fans feel like they are part of the success, so the same could be said for big companies. With that said, we need to ask one more question then.
What Are Their Fears And Aspirations?
Many people have some sort of fear that your product may also solve or at least let them forget about. SO, really take the time to understand the fears and the pain that comes with it.
The next part is their aspirations. What do they want to accomplish in life? Think of ways your product can help them accomplish their goals. Anchor your product to something important to them.
Target these two points and you can create a customer avatar. This is similar to what they do in Agile methodologies when thinking about the product’s end-user. So, here’s an example product and a breakdown to create a customer profile.
Customer Avatar (What Does Your Audience Look Like?)
Product: Story Of Ender (Indie RPG Game)
User Wants:
They want an RPG game with a rich story, but interesting mechanics that set it apart from AAA game. It should be a short experience that can fit between the huge AAA games and it should be easy to pick up and play. This allows them to comfortably enjoy the game and have it fit into their game catalog as something they can play whenever.
Fears:
- Is this game boring and uninteresting?
- Does this game have enough content?
- Is this game my type (action, horror, puzzle, etc)?
- Is it too difficult to complete?
- Can I stream it, so that others can watch my gameplay?
- Will game make me feel anything or be memorable?
- Is this game going to have microtransactions or be pay to win?
Aspirations:
- I want a game that doesn’t take up all my time
- Fun, but challenging
- Should be streamable
- I want a job that pays well.
- I want a collaborative experience with friends
- I can share this game with friends and family.
- I seem cool playing this game.
Now you might think this silly, but it is quite necessary. Understanding the values of your audience is key. Furthermore, it allows you to weed out people outside your demographic. Gamers tend to play a large number of games. But, they tend to stick to certain genres or games with similar systems. They also have a love of nostalgia; nostalgia sells big time. This is just an example with video games, but you can do this with any product to really understand your target audience.
A gamer would rather see a trailer and screenshots that provide bullet points that handle their fears and aspirations for the game. A person buying a fitness product or a technique for making money needs credible sources, real people who have gone through the program, and an understanding of who they are as an individual in the marketing message.
Either way, you are trying to connect with them on a deeper level; this applies to both gathering a following on social media or making a product. I hope this post helps you in finding your audience, stay tuned.
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