2.3 Understand the Brand's Audience

So, in the last episode, we touched upon the importance of understanding a business’ target audience in order to run effective ad campaigns. Now, we’re going to go a little deeper into this topic. Most marketers that run ads are primarily trying to do one thing –  show the business and its products to its audience. While that is important, most ads just end up talking about what they have to sell, without really thinking about what the audience needs.

 This is why most advertising feels like someone screaming in your face, begging you to buy from them. Nobody wants that. Nobody likes that. Ads that don't speak to the needs of the person fail to make a real connection, and in return, fail to generate proper results.

Let's take the example of the online flower store again. A good ad marketer would stop and ask -

Who is the perfect target audience for this online flower store? What are these people like? What is their demographic - income, age, location etc? What would make these people want to buy flowers specifically from this store? What should this brand say to its audience in order to get them to buy their flowers?

If you think along these lines, you'll not only create ads that connect with the target audience, but also stand out  from all the other flower stores that are trying to get the same audience.

Let's quickly touch upon each of these questions in a little more detail. 

Who is the perfect target audience?

Every business will have a bunch of different audiences that could potentially engage with them. But there will always be a sweet spot, an audience that just fits best. If you target this audience set first, chances are you'll find success early on in your campaign.

For example, in the online flower store, you might find out that most of their sales usually come from teenagers buying flowers for their significant other. It would be smart to make this audience a key part of the ad strategy.

Next, what is the demographic, income, age, location and more?

This point is going to make a lot more sense as we go on in this series and get into actual Ad targeting. But essentially, Facebook let's you target audiences based on their demographics. So understanding the business' audience demographics will help you set up ads for different locations and ages and test out campaigns to see which audience works better for the business.

Why would these target audiences buy from this particular business? Another great question to ask about your audience.

Why would each of them buy from this business? What specific need of theirs does this business solve that would make them loyal customers? What are some messages that would work really well with each audience?

Communication is really the key to good marketing.

You can't speak the same way to a 16-year-old and a 57- year-old. The language, tone and message has to be carefully tailored according to the audience. Building messages that are unique to different target audiences should be another best practice for you to keep in mind. We ended up talking a lot about selling flowers, but hopefully you get the idea.

 If you really take the time to understand your audience, your ads are going to be leagues ahead of anyone else in the market. And, this wraps up our episode on understanding the audience. We hope you’re getting a taste of what it means to be an Ace ad marketer.

In the next episode, we're going to turn up the heat and introduce you to a whole new way to approach ads. I don't want to give away too much, but let's just say things are about to get VERY real.