The online shopping market has been booming in recent years, reaching $6.3 trillion in 2023, according to Forbes Advisor. E-commerce is expected to account for more than a fifth of all retail sales by 2027, making it a dominant force in the global economy. Another study by Oberlo confirms that online shopping is outpacing traditional retail, with e-commerce sales growing twice as fast as total retail sales in 2023.
But this also means that promoting brands will become more challenging. The competition will intensify in 2024 and beyond. Sales skills are a vital asset that can boost the profitability of any business. How can you master them? One way is to set up effective advertising campaigns. But before you do that, you need to identify your target audience.
What is a Target Audience Profile?
Target audience is a group of people who are most likely to buy the advertised product. The core of the target audience is the most active and loyal customers, who generate the lion’s share of the revenue.
To create a target audience profile, marketers often use the “5W” questioning method:
WHAT? What does the customer want to buy? What product features are they looking for?
WHO? Who is the customer? What are their interests, preferences and income level?
WHY? Why does the customer need this product? What problem will it solve? What motivates them to buy? How do they perceive the brand?
WHEN? When will the customer make the purchase? Will it be a spontaneous decision or a long-term consideration?
WHERE? Where will the customer buy the product? What platform or channel will they use?
Target audience profile is a detailed and realistic representation of the ideal customer. It helps to segment the target audience into smaller and more specific groups. For example, “25-45 year old entrepreneurs” is a broad and vague target audience that does not capture the diversity of the customers. To refine this target audience, you need to add more details and nuances to create a more accurate customer profile.
Why You Need to Create a Target Audience Profile
Creating a target audience profile is the first step in designing a marketing strategy. Here are some of the main reasons for doing so:
To craft a compelling sales proposition. By understanding what the customer wants, what their views and tastes are, you can tap into their pain points and make them interested in your product. A target audience profile is the foundation for creating a personalised offer and effective ads for different segments. The profile helps you to identify the triggers that influence the customer’s decision.
To prioritise your efforts. By knowing which customers are potential and which are interested, you can tailor your communication with them accordingly. For example, you can use the sales department to engage with the potential customers and the marketing department to nurture the interested ones.
To choose the best platforms for your campaigns. Profiling your target audience helps you to determine where they come from and what channels they use. This way, you can focus your campaigns on the most relevant platforms and create new offers that suit them.
To establish the direction of your sales. Once you have created and tested your target audience profile, you can concentrate on the most popular product that meets their needs and preferences.
To optimise your costs. When you promote your products online, you can easily collect and analyse data. You can also measure the return on investment of your campaigns. By knowing your expenses, you can reduce them in a smart way. For example, you can fine-tune your targeting based on your in-depth knowledge of your target audience. Or you can stop advertising on platforms that bring minimal traffic.
What Characteristics Make Up a Target Audience Profile?
The more general the target audience, the less specific the profile can be. The description will be vague, without emphasising distinctive features. To identify a group of people with common needs, the audience is segmented. But segmentation does not provide details such as age, income or interests. These should be considered when manually setting up campaigns, based on the following characteristics.
Geographic
Target audience may vary across different countries or regions. For each territory, you need to create a separate audience profile. Even within the same country, the mindset and interests of urban and rural dwellers may differ.
A striking example of how geographic location affects positioning is Britney Spears’ promotional poster for her album release. The first picture shows a Western approach, the second an Eastern adaptation. Without knowing that in the East women cannot pose in revealing clothes, the whole advertising campaign could have backfired. The public would have criticised the singer for publishing the first picture, which would have drastically reduced her album sales. People would not want to buy content that insults their sensibilities. Moreover, the government would not allow such advertising in public media.
Geographic characteristics should also include regional and climatic factors. There is no point in advertising swimsuits for Alaska residents or snowboards for Hawaii. The living conditions shape the needs of people.
Demographic
Basic demographic characteristics when creating a target audience profile are:
Gender. For example, when advertising a car for men, you may highlight its technical features. For women, you may focus on comfort, appearance and convenience.
Age. Age groups have different needs. People aged 18-25 are just starting to live independently, they are immersed in hobbies, work or study. People aged 25-34 are mostly concerned about career, home, family and travel. Older people want a calm and relaxed life. For example, an energy drink ad for 18-25 year olds could show a lively party, a group of friends and dancing. For 25-34 year olds, it could show an entrepreneur or an employee of a large company, who easily boosts their productivity after a drink. It is advisable to segment the audience by 10-15 years.
Personal relationships. Single people may prioritise parties, exotic trips and nightclubs, while couples may prefer romantic gifts, trips for two and flowers. Family people may value everyday comfort, such as leisure activities for children and parents, gifts for anniversaries and children’s education.
National and religious nuances. Not all arguments work the same way for different faiths. A Muslim is unlikely to appreciate an ad for a restaurant with a pork dish on its poster.
Socio-economic
The level of education and the type of work influence the interests of the target audience. By understanding their social status, you can offer them the right product. For example, an aspiring director may care about status symbols, while an office worker may not. The office worker may value functionality and affordability more.
It is also important to consider the income level of the target audience. A waitress is unlikely to be interested in even the most appealing advertisement of luxury cosmetics. Women in high-paying positions are more likely to buy expensive cosmetics.
Behavioural
To understand why a customer buys certain things, it is not enough to know their basic characteristics. You need to understand their personality. To do this, marketers ask questions such as:
How does the customer behave when buying?
What goals does the buyer have?
What benefits does the product offer to the customer?
What is the most important factor for the customer when buying? What detail will make them pay?
What is more convenient for them: online or offline?
What are the reasons for switching to a competitor? What would make them come back?
How loyal are they to the brand?
By knowing the principles that guide the customer, you can anticipate their behaviour towards other products of the brand.
Psychographic
Psychographics is the classification of people based on their attitudes, values, goals, hobbies, lifestyle and other psychological traits. Psychographics does not tell you what kind of customer buys your products. It tells you what drives them to buy.
When creating a customer profile, psychographic traits may look like this: has a dog, enjoys hiking, is a Leonardo DiCaprio fan, collects coins. These traits are useful when creating engaging content. In the long run, they increase the number of impulse purchases. Moreover, these customer traits tell you where the customer can find your brand’s advertising. And if the customer spends a lot of time offline, you need to find alternative communication channels. This can include advertising in apps, outdoor banners and other methods.
How to Create a Target Audience Profile
Let’s look at the steps in more detail.
Step 1: Identify the target audience and its segments
The first thing you need is a basic analysis of the potential target audience. To do this, you need to know your customers. Their gender, age, location and income level. You also need to know their wants, pain points and needs. You can get this data from sources such as:
Surveys on social media or direct conversations with customers;
Data from analytics systems;
Reviews of similar products.
Here are some more ways to identify the target audience:
Conduct a survey among sales and marketing staff. You need to ask which customers visit physical stores, whether they come alone or with someone. Who makes the final buying decision and who pays for the products? You can also ask how they pay – in cash or by card, what is the average amount, what are the inventory levels and why some products are out of stock;
Ask sales assistants what customers are wearing, how they talk to the staff, whether they need guidance. You also need to find out which shelves they find more appealing. Does the atmosphere matter;
Analyse this information and compare it with data from analysts.
For example, let’s say you have a customer who wants to buy a virtual reality helmet. The first step is to define the target audience:
18-34 year olds who want to buy a VR gaming helmet;
Segments such as gamers and computer club owners;
The helmet is used to improve the gaming experience;
It is convenient because it makes the image more detailed and the user more immersed in virtual reality;
It is easy to use – just plug it into a PC and play.
Gamers or computer club owners know what features they need. They don’t look for generic VR helmets, but choose products based on the specifications that suit them. Considering this, we can divide the segments by income levels: economy, medium, luxury. For each level, we need to describe the helmet features according to its price.
For example, for students 18-25 years old, an economy version for $99.99 would be suitable. Such a helmet allows you to enjoy the game, but the viewing angle and power are not very impressive. For gamers 34-40 years old, it would be better to offer helmets from $399.99 with maximum functionality and resolution.
Step 2: Describe the segment features
To describe the features of the segment, you need to choose the “face” of the target audience. This means creating a realistic representation of a typical customer based on the characteristics collected during the general audience analysis. You should consider geographic, demographic, psychographic, socio-economic and behavioural features. Let’s continue with the example of buying a VR helmet. The segment has the following features:
Geographic: Los Angeles, California. The tech shop focuses on this area;
Demographic: men aged 25-40;
Psychographic: enjoy playing computer games, curious about artificial intelligence, fascinated by virtual reality;
Socio-economic: have a higher technical education, work in IT, earn above average income;
Behavioural: want to enhance their leisure time, need a helmet for fun or casual competitions.
These features can help you determine the best promotion channels. They are also useful for creating relevant content that boosts sales.
Step 3: Ask questions to customers
After segmenting the target audience, you need to prepare a list of questions that you will ask your potential customers. You can post these questions on social media, ads or email newsletters. You can also use the services of a psychologist who will create a psychological profile of the customer. This will help you to persuade the customer to buy, based on their values and emotions. This can boost your profits.
Some examples of questions you can ask users are:
Where do you live? Just the city name is enough;
What is your income level? You can choose from several options. For example, from $25,000 to $50,000, from $50,000 to $75,000, from $75,000 and above;
What kind of education do you have: high school, college or university? Your major also matters: technical, humanities or social sciences;
What is your job title?
What is your goal for buying a VR helmet?
What technical features do you prioritise: resolution, viewing angle, OS, graphics card, RAM, need for additional equipment or others?
Have you used a VR helmet before? If yes, why do you want to change?
What are your favourite computer games that you use the helmet for?
Which brands do you prefer? You can pick from a few options, such as HTC Vive, Xiaomi Mi, Oculus GO, Samsung, Sony PlayStation or others;
What is the best price for the helmet?
To encourage more people to answer, you can add a top selection of helmets to the survey or offer a promo code.
Step 4: Create a customer profile
Using the features collected in the previous steps, you can create a profile of your ideal customer. This will help you to target your advertising campaign to this audience, which means – this audience will bring you profit. An example of a customer profile for customised canvas tote bags is:
Natalie, 19 years old;
lives in Chicago;
single, no children;
studies at university, gets some financial support from her parents and works part-time on weekends. Average income up to $1,000 per month;
comes from a middle-class family;
holds liberal views, cares about the environment;
interested in self-improvement, enlightenment, reads scientific literature;
wants to be popular, runs a personal blog.
By offering Natalie customised tote bags with drawings of her favourite TV shows, you can appeal to her uniqueness. By buying this bag, Natalie can also contribute to the environment by reducing plastic use. Moreover, the distinctive print looks stylish, bright and matches her personality.
Different Ways to Profile Your Target Audience
Before you start your campaign, you need to know where your traffic comes from. Here are some basic methods for creating a target audience profile.
Free methods
Free methods of profiling your customers are effective. They may take some time, but they offer practical benefits.
Social surveys and market research
Market research can be time-consuming but rewarding. Sometimes you may need to hire marketing agencies for this. It can be costly and extensive. However, you can also do social surveys on your own. For example, you can use online questionnaires. You can send them to your user base. You can use Google Docs to create them. To motivate your customers to fill out the questionnaire, you can offer them a personal bonus or discount. You can also conduct interviews with specific people in your target audience.
Open source analysis: forums, reviews, testimonials
Reviews are a source of honest feedback about products. They are given voluntarily. The goal is to share genuine impressions about the product. You should look for reviews on forums and communities. Reviews on social media are often biassed. They are not very useful for the marketer.
From the opinions of people, you can learn their motives and triggers for buying, their opinion on the value for money. You can also find out if there are any problems with the product or its positioning.
Personal observations
By using your practical experience, you can support your expert opinion. After talking to sales consultants and observing sales for a while, you can draw some conclusions about your target audience. This method is personalised. It depends on your skill level.
Competitive intelligence
You can use a mystery shopper to evaluate the quality of your competitors’ work. Through this, you can discover their strengths and weaknesses. You can also understand why one company is losing to another.
Consultations with specialists
A customised approach is important in this matter. You can consult with experts from different fields: marketers, psychologists, fellow entrepreneurs, brokers and others. The choice of an expert should be based on the problem you face. If your products are not selling, you need professional advice from a marketing expert. Based on their expert opinion, you can choose other specialists.
Data analytics services
These systems collect customer information and generate simple reports. Google Analytics and Meta (former Facebook) Pixel are the most popular ones.
Social media is a great source of analytics. Customers spend more time on them and interact with content voluntarily. Meta is the most convenient service for collecting data. It offers many options for organising user actions, information and attitudes towards the brand.
Social Networks
You can easily get basic statistics from social networks, such as:
The geo-location of the target audience, including the city breakdown;
The predominant gender of the customers;
The age range of the audience.
You can find this data on Instagram and Facebook. If they are not enough, you can conduct regular surveys.
Recording incoming calls and call tracking
Call tracking allows you to monitor conversations between advisors and potential customers. You can find relevant personal data about customers in the conversations. To set up call tracking, you need to find a suitable service. It is better to choose a service that transcribes the conversation into text.
Interviews with target audience representatives
Interviews are a tedious but effective way to learn the opinions of the target audience about the product. Before conducting an interview, you should prepare questions. Then, you should invite customers. To motivate them, you can offer them a personalised discount or promotion. The interview should be divided into two sections:
Basic questions.
Additional questions.
The first part of the conversation will cover general information about the person, such as their age, location, occupation, interests, needs, motivation and emotional reactions to the product. The second part of the interview will ask more specific questions, such as:
The customer’s habits. What are their behavioural patterns?
The customer’s dreams, fears and goals.
The customer’s relationships with family and friends.
The interview helps you to understand the profile of the target audience and also reveals the missing details in the psychological profile of the customer. Through live dialogue, it is easier to understand their emotions and triggers and how to work with them. Tests, especially psychological tests, are also useful.
Another option for the interview is to gather a focus group of several people and offer them a format for a group discussion. You can also use personal incentives to increase their motivation.
Paid methods
Here are some of the most popular paid services for profiling your audience.
SimilarWeb is a powerful tool for comprehensive analysis of an online site and its target audience. The advantage of this service is that it has strong features for competitor analysis. You can easily compare different companies and identify the leaders and the laggards. You can also see the promotion channels that your competitors use and how effective they are. You can display the data in tables or other graphic formats.
Basic information:
The lowest price plan starts at $249;
There is a free trial available;
There are features for competitive analysis, keyword research, referrals, affiliates, creatives, etc;
The pros are that it offers multiple options for analysing sites, both yours and your competitors’. The cons are that it is expensive.
Popsters is a popular service for marketers to profile their target audience. The service provides dozens of tools for creating an accurate portrait of your target audience. The service works well with your competitors’ accounts – you can organise their posts by date and time of day and also download them for a specific period. You can also sort their posts by the percentage of audience engagement. This will help you access the most interesting posts of other companies. Moreover, you can collect posts with the most comments on the service. They are a gold mine of customers’ personal opinions about the brand. You can find a lot of insights and also avoid the mistakes of your competitors.
Basic information:
The minimum cost is $9.99 per month;
There is a free trial for 7 days;
The pros are that it has a user-friendly and clear interface and you can find content by specific time periods.
Moz is a great tool for SEO and keyword research. You can use it to find out what your target audience is searching for, how competitive those keywords are and how to optimise your website for them. You can also analyse your competitors’ websites and see how they rank for different keywords. Moz can help you create a content strategy that attracts and converts your target audience.
Basic information:
The lowest price plan starts at $99 per month;
There is a free trial for 30 days;
There are features for keyword research, site audits, rank tracking, backlink analysis and more;
The pros are that it offers comprehensive and reliable data for SEO and content marketing. The cons are that it can be overwhelming for beginners and some features are limited in the lower plans.
SurveyMonkey is a popular service for creating and conducting online surveys. You can use it to gather feedback from your target audience, understand their needs and preferences and measure their satisfaction. You can also use SurveyMonkey to test your products, services or ideas before launching them. SurveyMonkey can help you collect valuable insights from your target audience and improve your offerings.
Basic information:
The lowest price plan starts at $25 per month;
There is a free plan with limited features;
There are features for creating surveys, analysing results, sharing reports and integrating with other tools;
The pros are that it is easy to use, has a large variety of question types and templates and offers advanced analytics. The cons are that the free plan has low response limits and some features are only available in the higher plans.
BuzzSumo is a useful tool for content and social media marketing. You can use it to discover what kind of content your target audience is engaging with, what topics are trending and what influencers are sharing. You can also use BuzzSumo to monitor your brand, competitors and keywords across the web and social media. BuzzSumo can help you create and distribute content that resonates with your target audience and drives traffic to your website.
Basic information:
The lowest price plan starts at $99 per month;
There is a free trial for 30 days;
There are features for content discovery, content analysis, content research, influencer marketing, etc;
The pros are that it offers a wealth of data and insights for content and social media marketing. The cons are that it is expensive and some features are not very accurate or updated.
Examples of Target Audience Profiles
To help you understand this concept better, here are some examples of target audience profiles.
Example 1
Ryan, 30 years old;
lives in Seattle;
single, no kids;
socio-economic characteristics: owner of a language school, income – $100,000 per year;
religion, political views: atheist, liberal;
fears: losing income, professional stagnation, creative burnout;
goals and dreams: to grow his school, to travel, to be successful, popular and respected.
Ryan wants to fulfill his potential in his career, to see as many countries as he can and to show others the benefits of learning languages. He is attracted to unique products with original designs, trendy accessories, stylish items and exciting trips.
Example 2
Lily, 39 years old;
lives in Houston;
married, has a son;
socio-economic characteristics: economist in construction, income – $60,000 per year;
religion, political views: Christian, conservative;
fears: loneliness, boredom, failures in family and work;
goals and dreams: to have a positive reputation among family and colleagues, to feel important in all aspects of life, a cosy house, a beautiful garden or backyard.
Lily needs to feel valued and appreciated. She is likely to buy eco-friendly products, home and garden cleaning products, decor, clothes, cosmetics – anything that will help her create a comfortable home and an attractive appearance.
Example 3
Vanessa, 28 years old;
lives in Denver;
single, no kids;
socio-economic characteristics: entrepreneur, owns a chain of pharmacies, income – $150,000 per year;
religion, political views: atheist, liberal;
fears: making the wrong decision, work challenges;
goals and dreams: to showcase her status, to share her experience, to speak in front of an audience with a success story.
Vanessa wants to show that she has achieved a lot at a relatively young age. She wants to reach a wide audience and share her insights. She is drawn to products that highlight her status, youth and wealth.
Common Mistakes with Target Audience Profiling
Here are some of the most frequent mistakes when creating a target audience profile:
Overlooking details. When segmenting your audience, you need to include as many specifics as possible or you will end up with a vague and general profile;
Having too many profiles. If you have 3-4 profiles for each segment, it will confuse your audience and yourself. It will be hard for you to decide which one to focus on. You need to merge similar information from different profiles, so that you have one profile for each segment;
Having no profile at all. If you don’t know your target audience, you will waste your budget. The money you allocated for advertising will be spent in vain. You need to analyse, segment and refine your target audience regularly;
Creating a profile and never updating it. Customers change over time. This means you need to update your profiles regularly. Trends, preferences and opinions change. So do the needs of your audience. You need to review and revise your information before your sales drop;
Focusing on one customer, not their context. Sometimes marketers neglect other factors that influence the buying decision, besides the direct payer. This is a mistake. If a man is buying a car for his family, he will probably consult his wife or parents. They have a strong impact on his choice.
Customer Profile Template
Customer profile is a tool that helps you create a detailed and realistic representation of your ideal customer. It includes information such as demographic, behavioural, psychographic and socio-economic features. You can use a customer profile template to segment your target audience and tailor your marketing efforts to their needs and preferences. Here is an example of a customer profile template with some main points:
How to Use Collected Profile Data of Your Target Audience
By having segmented audiences, you can design effective campaigns. These ads can address consumers’ problems and motivate them to respond. Knowing the profile of the target audience helps you to create appealing content, with the right emotions in the words and images. This will foster long-term trust and loyalty from the audience to the brand. You can use the target audience profile when setting up targeted advertising or collaborating with bloggers and other partners.
Profiling your customers is valuable. With the knowledge of the target audience, you can influence their choices.
FAQ
