Target audience refers to the market segment that your business aims to reach. It is a group of consumers with common characteristics and to whom the brand directs its marketing strategies.
The more information you have about your target audience, the better you know them, the more likely you are to plan an assertive and successful strategy.

Differences between target audience and persona
The target audience refers to a group of people with a similar profile as consumers and whose profile is drawn baes on data such as age, gender, location, consumption habits, etc...

The persona is the fictitious representation of your idela consumer profile. Based on target audience research, they are created in detail with information such as personal characteristics, lifestyle, interests, etc...

How to segment the target audience?
The main bases of target market segmentation are as follows:

Geographic
This is a way to segment the target audience based on their location (country, region, city, etc)

Demographic
Demographic segmentation takes into account criteria to characterize the segment, such as age, sex, socioeconomic factors, religion, etc)

Psychographic
Psychographic segmentation is based on psychological factors such as values, desires or opinions.

Behavioral
The behavioral aspect encompasses behavior patterns such as frequency of purchase, level of interest, purchase motivations, etc.

Why should you define a target audience?


Personalization
More and more consumers place greater importance on personalized communications and the ease with which they can access the information they want to obtain.
Given the ease with which any person/company can create and share generic content online, it becomes increasingly important for brands to distinguish themselves in the middle of so much information.
Knowing your target audience well, such as in which channels it is more present and valued, it becomes easier for the brand not only to customize the content so that it meets their interests, but also to place them on those channels.

Precision in planning
Based on what has been mentioned so far, we can easily understand that a deeper and more detailed knowledge of the target audience gives greater precision in planning your marketing strategy.
By having information about the channels used, the type of information you are looking for, what kind of language you use, even the age group, it will be easier to position your brand's marketing actions so that they fit the target, capturing your attention towards the brand and increases the probability of conversion.

How to define the target audience?
1 - Know your market
Understanding the market in which your brand operates is a fundamental step in defining your target audience.
Look for information about consumer habits and needs, social, cultural and technological factors and how these can affect your business. In addition, it is also important to analyze the competition and how they position themselves and approach the market.

2 - Define your product/service well
Your brand's goal should be to solve a problem or satisfy a consumer need. For that reason, you should ask yourself what problem/need does your product intend to solve, and who are the people who need the solution you offer?
In other words, it is about defining your value proposition, which consists of providing the customer with a clear idea of what your business is all about, making it stand out in the market and from your competitors.

3 - Define the target audience
After knowing the market where you operate and defining your product's value proposition well, start the process of defining your target audience.
To do so, use the previously mentioned segmentation bases and divide the market into segments is order to create a profile of the consumer public.
After dividing these segments, assess its attractiveness (for example barriers to entr, if needs are already met, if it is a growing segment, etc.) and select your brand's target segment.
Depending on the selected target segment, you must define your brand positioning in order to define specific strategies for each audience.

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