How to find your target audience for your business

You find your target audience by starting with what you sell and who it's for. Then you look at the people who already buy from you, and at what your website statistics, social media and newsletter show. A little market research and a look at who your competitors aim at fill in the gaps. Finally, you write down the group you'll focus on.

Your website and marketing can then speak to the people who need what you sell, such as the hikers who come to a shoe shop for walking boots.

Why it helps to know your target audience

A target audience is a group of people who share needs or preferences, and your business aims at them for that reason. Picture an independent shoe shop with its website at bramblestepshoes.co.uk. Hikers who care about the environment and young people shopping for a night out may both visit the shop's website, but they will probably:

• look for quite different products, such as walking boots or smart shoes.
• use different keywords when they search for those products.
• spend their time on different platforms and channels.
• respond differently to the same ad or offer.

Once you know which group you're talking to, you can tailor your products, your messages and your marketing to them:

• On your website, you can show visitors the information and products that matter to them, which gives them an improved user experience. If you have an online shop, you can write your product descriptions in their words and choose colours and pictures that suit them.
• A better SEO strategy starts with the words your audience actually types into Google.
• In your marketing, you know what content appeals to your audience and where to put it. Your campaigns then reach people who are likely to respond and become customers.
• Use what you learn to show your customers you understand what they need. Knowing your audience helps you create and keep loyal customers.

How to choose a specific target audience

Before you start looking, it helps to know what a good target audience looks like. Choose a group that is:

• easy to identify and follow. Age and location are a good place to start, such as young people in your own town.
• big enough to be worth your time and money, but small enough to reach with one message.
• made up of people who need or enjoy what you sell, not simply the biggest group you can find.
• within your capacity. Each group needs its own content and campaigns, so choose no more groups than you have time for.

Where the right size lies depends on your business, your products and your capacity. A broad audience gives you more people who might buy, but it's harder to find one message that suits them all. A narrower core audience is a more specific group of people who are even more receptive to what you offer, though it leaves out people who might also buy. If you're unsure, start a little too broad rather than too narrow, and narrow it down as you learn more.

How many target audiences should you start with?

Our advice: start with one target audience, your most important one, and don't split it into smaller segments yet. That one group can still be a fairly broad one. The people in that one group are the first customers to test your offer, so you learn what works before you spread your time thin. If you sell products for very different customers, such as children's shoes and running shoes, one audience per product group can make sense. Once you have enough data, split a group into smaller segments.

Checklist: is your target audience a good fit?

Before you settle on a group, answer these questions about it:

• Can I learn what this group likes from my orders, website statistics or followers?
• Do several of my current customers already fit the group?
• When I search for the products this group wants, do other shops in my area sell them too?
• Could one page or one campaign speak to everyone in the group?
• Are these mainly people who need what I have to offer?

A yes to the second and third questions is a good sign the group is big enough. If you answer no to most of them, the group is probably too small, too vague or not the right fit yet.

How to find your target audience: 7 ways

Start with the information your business already has, then fill the gaps with a little research.

1. Start with your business idea

Go back to your business idea and write down what you offer, what makes it different and who you had in mind when you started. Knowing the need you meet is the starting point for working out who you're aiming at.

2. Look at your existing customers

Your current customers show you who actually buys. Look through your orders, enquiries and reviews. Where do your typical customers live, roughly how old are they, what do they buy together and what do they ask about before they buy? The patterns you spot here are a good guide to who your audience really is.

3. Check your website statistics

Your website statistics show who visits, even if they don't buy yet. If you have an online shop with us, you can gather this information in its built-in analytics. You can also use another analytics tool, such as Google Analytics. Look at where your visitors come from and which devices and browsers they use. If most of them are on a phone, check your pages on a phone first. In Google Analytics, the Demographic details report also shows your users' language, interests, location, age and gender. Demographics and interests only appear once you've activated Google signals. If they're still empty after that, Google Analytics may have applied data thresholds. Look for the group that turns up most often, and compare it with the people who actually buy.

4. Study your social media followers

If your business is on social media, look closely at your followers. Which channels have the most followers and the most engagement? And what do the people who like, comment on and share your posts have in common?

5. Look at your newsletter subscribers

If you send a newsletter, look at which emails your subscribers open and which links they follow. Their clicks show which products and topics interest which subscribers, and that tells you more about who your audience is.

6. Do some market research

Market research helps you learn about people who aren't your customers yet. A short survey or poll with a few specific questions tells you what people want and why, for example "What matters most to you when you buy walking boots?". You can make a survey with an online form tool and share it on social media or in your newsletter. An A/B test shows visitors one of two versions of a web page at random. You then see which version works better for your audience.

7. See who your competitors are aiming at

Your competitors sell similar products or solve the same problems, so the people they try to reach may be your audience too. Look at their websites, social media and campaigns, and notice who comments on and shares their posts. A full competitor analysis can also show you which customers and needs they leave unserved, and that can point you to a group your competitors aren't aiming at.

Target group analysis: how to define your target audience

Once you've gathered what you know, you turn it into a clear description of each audience. That description is what you use when you write a web page, plan a campaign or choose a channel.

Sort what you found into segments

Start by sorting your findings into segments: groups of customers who share a trait, such as their age, location or interests. A long list of findings then becomes a few groups you can work with. Segments are usually based on who people are (age, gender, income), where they live, what they value and enjoy, and how and when they buy. Our beginner's guide to target audiences goes through each type of segmentation.

Write a short description of each group

To understand what your audience needs, write a few lines for each group under these headings:

• Who they are: their age, where they live and their job.
• What they care about: their interests, values and lifestyle.
• What they need: the problems and worries they want solved, and the questions they want answered.
• How you help: how your products or services meet those needs, and the benefits they bring.
• Where you reach them: the websites they visit and the social networks they use.

For the shop's hikers, a finished description could read like this. They're adults aged 45 to 55 who live within an hour of the shop and walk most weekends. They care about the outdoors and the environment, and they want boots that last. They need boots they can trust to be sustainable and comfortable on long walks. The shop can help with boots that can be repaired and a page on its website that's honest about where the boots come from. You reach them on Instagram, walking forums and local walking groups.

To go a step further, you can create a persona: an invented customer you build from the data you've gathered, such as "Holly the Hiker".

Primary and secondary target audiences

Give most of your attention to your primary target audience, the group most of your sales come from. A secondary audience is a smaller group that buys less, or that sways the people who buy. Give it a smaller share of your marketing, but don't ignore it. At bramblestepshoes.co.uk, children who pick out their school shoes could be a secondary audience. They don't pay, but they can sway the parents who do. Speak to the parents about durability and to the children about colours. If you sell to other businesses, describe the company (its sector, size and location) as well as the person who decides to buy. The colleagues who are involved in the buying decision can be your secondary audience, because they can influence that decision.

Disadvantages of having a target audience

A fixed target audience can make you miss customers, go out of date as your business grows, or leave some people out of an offer.

You might overlook potential customers

A tight focus can blind you to people outside your group. Yet you may find a new group among them that responds better than the one you first chose. At bramblestepshoes.co.uk, nurses might start buying walking shoes for long shifts, and a message aimed at hikers could miss them. Keep an eye on who buys from you, not only on who you expected.

Your target audience will change

Once you've defined your audience, it's tempting to think the job is done. As your business grows, though, your audience usually changes with it. Repeat the same checks regularly to test and refine it. Look again at your website statistics, who signs up for your newsletter, your new followers and what your competitors are doing.

Targeting can treat people unfairly

Aiming an offer at one group can leave others out. Suppose the shop emails its hikers a discount on walking boots. Someone outside that group could then pay full price for the same boots on the shop's website without ever seeing the offer. Showing the offer on the website too would avoid that. The same goes for an ad you show to only one age group or gender: try a broader range than you first planned, so fewer people miss out. In the UK, all marketing and advertising must describe the product or service accurately and be legal, decent, truthful, honest and socially responsible. There are also regulations that restrict what advertisers can and cannot do. Check the marketing and advertising rules on GOV.UK before you run a targeted campaign.

Put your target audience to work on your website

With a clear description of each audience, you know whose words to use, which products to show first and which questions your pages should answer. If you already have a website, read your home page and product pages with that description beside you, and rewrite what doesn't speak to the group. If you don't have one yet, build your website around the audience you've described, and update it as your audience changes.

Build and manage your website without coding or design experience, and change it whenever your audience does.