How to define your ideal customer (and target market)

Published On - September 6, 2021

Georgie Hope Blog, Business Growth Strategies, Marketing and SEO, SEO Blog
Ideal customer or clients and seo

There’s one marketing tactic that every business should use to increase chances of success: defining an ideal client and target market. 

Although many business owners are tempted to target anyone and everyone with their marketing, choosing a niche and sticking to it is a proven method of gaining more loyal and happy customers. Businesses can target more than one ideal customer niche within their target market, but it’s important to specifically define and separate them so marketing can be more targeted and therefore more effective. 

What other services do they use? Where do they go for information? Who influences their decisions? 

Knowing this kind of information enables you to develop marketing strategies and campaigns tailored specifically to these potential customers. 

Here are 5 ways to define your ideal customer or client:

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1. Consider your ideal client’s demographics

Target market demographics are the physical aspects you need to consider when defining who you want to market your business to. If psychographics (below) are the more personal why and how of your customers, demographics are the what, when and where. This is how you define your who! 

Here are some examples of demographic data to determine about your audience:

  • Are they in a certain area/do they have to live in the same area your business is based?
  • What is their age and gender?
  • Do they have children/pets? 
  • What is their profession? 
  • What is their stage in life?

People don’t all have the same interests, wants and needs, but many of these can be determined by looking at demographics. A 20-year-old male student in Sydney is likely going to use their money differently to a 50-year-old female farmer in a rural town. This is why you need to know your ideal clients’ demographics — you can’t market to such different audiences in the same way.

2. Consider your ideal client’s psychographics

Target market psychographics are the psychological aspects of a potential client. Where demographics are about the tangible and physical, psychographics are about how people think. 

What is my customers’ personality? What do they want out of life? How does their lifestyle affect me as a small business owner? 

Psychographics study people’s lifestyles, attitudes, and beliefs, and are often used to target a group with specific needs or interests. Psychographic data can be collected through surveys, questionnaires, interviews, focus groups, etc. in order to better understand what motivates them. 

Here are some examples of psychographic data to determine about your audience:

  • Lifestyle 
  • Style/importance of following trends
  • Hobbies/interests
  • Environmental consciousness
  • Personality
    • Attitudes
    • Values
    • Behavior
    • Emotional or logical

Just like we discussed with demographics, you can’t market the same way to two people with very different psychographics. If their lifestyles and behaviours are completely different, they won’t respond to the same marketing. 

3. What are their wants and needs? 

So, you have a product you want to sell and you’ve chosen a certain group of people to sell it to, but what’s in it for them? Why should they buy it?

You now know about who they are, so it’s time to figure out how your specific product or service fits into their life. This fundamental rule of marketing – focusing on the consumer over the product – works for a reason. People don’t want to be told to buy something. They want to be sold something that’s beneficial to them. 

Wants: the things your audience desire to have 

Needs: the more realistic things they must have to survive 

If your chosen target market is 25-35 year old mothers who are interested in trendy but ethically made baby clothes at an affordable price, you have to figure out how to meet their need. How can you provide baby clothes that look great but aren’t expensive, and how can you convince this market to buy yours instead of your competitors’?

4. Why does your business serve them better than your competitors’?

Chances are you’re not the only business who meets the wants and needs of your target market, and this means you have to compete if you want to succeed.

So, why is your business not necessarily better than, but a better choice for your target audience, compared to competitors?

Do you offer the product/service in a different way? Is it cheaper, or more upmarket? Is it easier to use/access? Is it more trendy? Is the quality better? Is your customer service better?

You have to offer the product or service to your target market in a way that benefits them more than your competitors’ offerings do. If you find you can’t do this, but there’s another niche market that does need the type of product/service you’re selling, it might be worthwhile testing different targeting. 

Alternatively, many entrepreneurs start with an audience first, before determining their business idea. They pick a niche and look at what their wants and needs are, THEN decide which product will be great to sell to them. Maybe you need to tweak your product/service to better serve your target market. 

5. Can you actually reach them?

Having a target market is great, but before you get too far into marketing to them, you have to see if this audience is a viable option for your business. 

Ask:

  • Are there enough people who fit my criteria?
  • Will my target really benefit from my product/service? Will they see a need for it?
  • Do I understand what drives my target to make decisions?
  • Can they afford my product/service?
  • Can I reach them with my message? Are they easily accessible?

If your product is lawn mowers for farmers, but you’re only marketing on billboards in a city, you probably won’t reach potential customers. Similarly, if your budget isn’t big enough – or you don’t have access to the type of marketing skills you need to reach your audience – you might have to think of a market you have a better chance of reaching. 

How will you create an ideal target market for your business?

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How to Reach your Ideal Customer with SEO

You cannot target people with SEO (search engine optimisation) like you can with Facebook. Instead of targeting their gender, age, like and interests, you have to target the search terms they use in Google or other search engines.

You first need to determine if your ideal client will even search online for your services. If you have a new product or service no one has heard of, people will not be looking for you. If you have a service or product that requires a very high level of trust, they probably won’t search for you online either.

You can do keyword research using Google’s free keyword planner to see if people search for your product or service. You can then look to see if they search using location keywords, like “Plumber Brisbane” or “Ice Cream Shop Mooloolaba”. You may not know anything else about them, but you know they are looking for a plumber in Brisbane or an ice cream shop in Mooloolaba.

SEO involves doing work on your website and also getting links to your website. This work helps Google and other search engines understand what your website is about and build trust.

So, if someone searches “Plumber Brisbane”, Google wants to take them to a website they know is a plumber’s website in Brisbane. Remember that Google is a robot – we have to help the robot so it knows for sure.

Have you tried reaching your audience through Search Engine Optimisation? If you want more traffic on your website, make sure you pick up Georgie Hope’s book SEO Course for Beginners! 

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