Defining a target audience is a crucial step in the marketing process for any business, as it helps to determine the most effective ways to reach and engage potential customers. By understanding the characteristics, needs, and behaviors of a specific group of individuals, a company can tailor its marketing efforts and messaging to better resonate with its target audience.

Admittedly, this presentation goes off on some tangents. Because of this, I wanted you to have a few actionable takeaways that you can implement in your business right now.

• Competitive analysis – whether you are launching a new product, entering a new market (industry or  geography), you need to know the players. You can use them to help define you unique value proposition. You can also assess their messaging, communication, and marketing channel choices to glean useful insight. Do this at least once per year, or any time you enter a new product category, industry, geography, or technographic.
• Know your buyer – knowing the decision makers and/or influencers in a target client organization (often a “committee” of decision makers) will help you determine their challenges & pain points, needs & values (what is important to them) ,  influences, and urgency.  George at Talloo had this Persona tool put together to help you: Talloo Persona Tool
• Remember to EAT – Expertise, Authority, and Trust are driving factors in the decision process. If you know that B2B buyers are researching solutions and making shortlists before they ever speak to a salesperson, you know that the average B2B buyer consumes 13 pieces of content during the research & evaluation stage, and that 8 of those pieces of content typically end up being from the vendor they ultimately choose, then you know that your content strategy and messaging are going to be mission critical..

Your messaging and communication needs to speak directly to those you’re targeting within an organization, whether it is the IT Director tasked with data security, the HR manager tasked with improving employee relations, the Project Manager who keeps getting burned by outsourced development resources, or the small business owner who needs a more dedicated sales solution or guidance with their finances but isn’t big enough to afford an in-house team yet. When you know your target, you can speak to them instead of AT them, and then you can start to build the genuine relationships that result in star clients.

I hope you find this information helpful. If I can be of assistance, please do not hesitate to email me and we can have a chat. – Casey