As business owners, we all know connecting with your target audience is essential. It’s part of product development. Without customers to purchase your products, goods, or services, why go through the work, the creative process, and time and effort to bring the business idea to fruition if there is no one to consume, partake of, or purchase the fruit? Businesses thrive because they have a good product to sell and customers who consistently buy what they are selling. Meaningfully connecting with your target audience in an impactful way is how businesses transform their business idea into a source for good in the world.
Consider your business as a loving grandmother who enjoys baking. She’s very intentional about her baking. Her recipes are one of a kind, not written down but imprinted on the hands she uses to knead the dough for her breads, cookies, and pies. The aroma of her kitchen can be smelled from afar, warming the memories of those who long for baked goods made with love. Imagine this grandmother making all these delicious goods without anyone there to enjoy them. They go to waste. Her efforts, skills, and tasty treats never reached her intended recipients. Who did she have in mind as she was baking? Her neighbors, grandchildren, local community members, perhaps? Who knows if they never come and all her handiwork goes to waste?
Your target audience in business is the customer of your business dreams. It’s the customer every business has in mind when they discuss everything from launch to expansion. It’s the dream of the exchange of money and products, and the customer in that business dream. To bring that customer to life, your target audience, businesses should do these three things.
1. Envision your target audience
Envisioning your target audience goes beyond the process of identifying and profiling your ideal customer. It is about creating a vivid mental image of your ideal customer. Think back to that time when your business was in the development phase. Who was the customer in that dream? What were their needs, wants, and expectations? Gather your team and dream again, this time focusing on your target audience’s specific characteristics and preferences to bring that customer’s needs, wants, and expectations to life. Sell to THAT customer. Connect with THAT customer.
2. Communicate with your customers to connect
Regardless of where you are in business, communicating with your customers is key to ensuring you give them what they want and ask for. After all, your business and customer arrangement is a relationship, and all relationships take communication and respect. Communicating to connect with your target audience is the process of collecting data from in-store conversations, digital surveys, or social media feedback and then taking action on this information to refine your marketing messages.
3. Implement the data collected
Data collection is a form of feedback that can be used to understand what you’re doing right and what needs improvement. Listening to your customers’ feedback can be tricky, but it’s essential to do so and take action on the feedback provided. Implementing changes based on that feedback can be challenging, but it’s the most crucial step in building (or rebuilding) a solid connection with your customers. Taking real-time actions based on their feedback can significantly improve your business relationship and build trust.
To grandmother’s house we go. Who’s coming with? Do you know? Grandmother’s baked goods are invaluable to the people who love her and trust that her baked goods are the best. Every business has the potential to have that same impact as a loving grandmother in her kitchen, preparing her beloved baked goods and everything she prepares for all who adore her. If your business needs help connecting and having an impact, contact us today. We help business owners (and grandmothers) ensure their hard work is appreciated and can reach all who want them, both near and far.