How to Find and Appeal to Your Audience Online?

Ten years ago, there were approximately 220,000 businesses located in New York City, and 98 percent of them were small businesses. In this highly competitive universe, how can your brand stand out from the competition?

Amidst the tragedy, something that the COVID-19 crisis proved was the change in consumer behavior. A McKinsey Global Institute study showed that 75 percent of U.S. consumers took advantage of the internet to buy from stores and brands they didn’t know about during the pandemic. This included people who weren’t used to shopping online until then.

This proves the importance of reaching your target audience online if you’re not already doing so. Traditional marketing remains important, but you also need a solid digital presence to get noticed by potential customers—and even by your longtime customers.

What is Target Audience?

Picture the scene: a young couple from NYC decides that they’re going to find a new restaurant in their neighborhood for dinner that night. While some people may still choose your restaurant just by walking in front of it, most will likely start by searching the internet to see the options, check prices, and read other consumers’ opinions before making up their minds. In other words: if you don’t have a digital presence, it’s like you don’t exist at all.

When you start to pay more attention to the audience that comes to your business through your website or social media, you notice certain patterns. This is what will help define your target audience, including data such as age, gender, income, and location of your potential customers. By defining a target audience, you will create more appropriate campaigns that reach the correct people.

Thanks to online marketing, businesses can now quickly and conveniently reach their target audience and offer them what they want and need. While traditional marketing is general, with online marketing, you can more quickly reach potential customers in a certain area—people who live in the NYC area, for example.

How to Find Your Audience?

There are different ways to find your target audience online. If you’re just starting, you can follow these steps:

1. Market or advertise where your competitors are online, so the customer who could reach them will also have your business as an option.
2. Consult audience analytics tools like Google Analytics to learn more about the people visiting your business website. Monitor engagement on social media accounts as well.
3. Use this data to identify exactly what type of customer your brand is reaching on the Internet and start focusing on them.
4. Establish an active social media presence for your business and market to the community you attract, including personalized promotions.
5. Engage with your social media audiences, quickly answering their questions and especially paying special attention to their criticisms.
6. Develop content that uniquely appeals to your target audience—for example, creating targeted content for those who need or could benefit from what your product/service offers.

How to Appeal to Your Audience?

Once you identify your target audience, you can create a detailed profile for them. Something like “upper-middle-class women living in NYC, aged 25–35.” By defining your target audience, you will not waste any time or money with people who aren’t part of it, like “men, aged 50.”

There are some simple strategies to more easily reach your target audience:

1. Analyze the marketing your competitors are doing online and find gaps in how they’re marketing to that target audience. Fill those gaps to gather these consumers.
2. When marketing online, don’t obviously “sell” to your audience. Try to entertain and inform them to feel you want to fulfill a need or want they have.
3. Create a brand culture that attracts your target audience more naturally. Many potential customers prefer to buy from businesses with values ??similar to theirs.
4. Ask current customers what they like or dislike about your business area and use that information to appeal positively to new customers.

If this all seems too challenging at first, seek expert help and try advertising agency services in New York. They can help take some of the pressure off and set you up for a successful advertising campaign.

You’re Either Online or You Don’t Exist.

The world has changed, and you can no longer rely on billboards, printed flyers, or TV and newspaper ads. Your company’s digital presence is vital to attract potential new customers and even to keep those you already have. Imagine that even your old customers may be looking for you online right now for one reason or another. If they don’t find you, they could end up on your competitor’s website or social media.

If you’re already online, try to identify your target audience to create more targeted marketing strategies aimed at these potential consumers. Maybe you’re not talking to the most valuable segment of your audience by not optimizing your online marketing efforts. Use these digital tools to your advantage and watch your business flourish.