Design - For Your Target Audience
Who is your brand for?
From time to time, I meet owners who have built their brand for themselves and wonder why it’s not catching on? Sure, you have to like what you are doing, you have to believe in it, you also have to think it’s worth doing. But ultimately, it has to be about solving problems for your audience or at the very least filling and fulfilling a desire they have. So the big question is, who is your brand for? If it is for your audience, then your products, services and experiences must communicate that. This is what will draw in your target audience rather than repelling them.
How do I determine my target audience?
It’s a common problem for SMB’s to not know who their target audience is. Earlier this year, I spent about a month with a group of coffee producers from Honduras helping them to better tell their story via social media. But much of our time was centered around this very topic. Defining their target audience. Thinking you need to solve one problem but finding out you don’t know who you are solving the problem for, is a result of not being crystal clear on who your target audience is to begin with.
Determining your target audience is a worthwhile task because it will help you design your brand, products, services, and experiences…so that the right people listen. The right people = your target audience. It’s wonderful if others are listening, but if your target audience isn’t listening, you aren’t going to have a business for very much longer.
So how do you determine your target audience? It comes down to who it is that you would like to sell to. Once you know that, you need to create a persona of who this person / organization / buyer is. Some questions to answer in building a target audience persona are:
What do they care about?
What are their needs?
Where are they, geographically?
What are their personalities like?
Are they big companies or small companies?
To build these personas well, you’ll need to spend some time analyzing, thinking, interviewing and synthesizing the answers to these questions; so that you can speak directly to them through your brand.
Keeping your audience in mind.
You guessed it. Your brand has to be built around, for, and with your target audience in mind. Every piece. Every element. Every color. Every word. The feelings you emote. The partnerships you make. It’s got to have your audience in mind through it all. You have to keep circling back to your target audience continually no matter what you are designing and no matter who your target audience is. If you are building something for them, they have to be at the heart of it.
What they want, might not be what they need.
Surprised? You shouldn’t be. The reality is that you have to know and anticipate their needs before they even realize their need. This is becoming, not a nice to have…but rather a NEED TO HAVE. Knowing what your audience needs before they know it, is what is separating the brands that add to the noise from the ones who really have something to say.
I’ll leave you with an example. Remember when you went to get your mom some flowers for the mothers day? It was either mothers day or the day prior, if you were really on your game, and you were rushing in to grab those flowers quickly but then the person behind the counter asked, “Do you need a card?” and of course, you said, “I sure do! Thanks for asking!” This is an example of anticipating your audience’s needs, before they realize them on their own. Sure, this is also good sales, but it’s also filling an anticipated need before they know it.
Designing your products, services and experiences with your target audience in mind will draw them in instead of repel them. We’d love to hear from you…when have you done this in your brand? What were the results? Did it draw in your target audience?
Design can pull in your target audience or push them away from your brand. Wondering if that's true of your brand? We can help keep your brand assets in line with your target audience. You can reach us at hi@thelevco.com.
Be well,
Luke & The LC Team