Knowing how to reach your target market is the only way to increase your market share and improve sales. Get it wrong, and your finances may suffer.

So, how can you reach your target audience and get them interested in your product or service?

What is a target audience?

A target audience is a specific group of consumers identified by you as most likely to want your product or service. They are consumers you hope will eventually become your customers. Target audiences can be dictated by age, gender, location, income, interests, or other demographic information, such as their job titles or those with a particular pain point or at a certain life stage.

Why knowing how to reach your target audience is important

It’s helpful to know who your target audience is. But, if you don’t know how to reach them, you’ll struggle to get your brand and products in front of them.

Knowing how to reach your target audience is important because:

• It helps you market smarter: Having insight into what works and what doesn’t can help you invest in effective campaigns and pull back on the duds.
• It influences product development: Defining the hurdles and aspirations different target audiences face can help you design and test products that are relevant and relatable.
• It increases revenue: Targeted marketing lets you focus on the efforts and audience segments that generate the most revenue—or, alternatively, lets you analyze why the other segments aren’t converting.

How to reach your target audience: 8 effective strategies

Ready to reach your target audience? Here are steps to get started.

1. Define your target audience
2. Learn where your audience is active
3. Create relevant content
4. Use targeted advertising
5. Work with influencers
6. Create a referral program
7. Use hashtags on social media
8. Stay in touch with your audience

1. Define your target audience

First, you need to know who you’re targeting before you can reach them. Define your target audiences:

• Have a solid understanding of your products and who might benefit from them
• Look at your existing customer profiles and carry out audience research
• Go deeper than demographic information and explore psychographic data
• Create core target audience segments
• Check out your competitors and their customer base

Understanding who your target audience is informs every other part of your marketing strategy.

2. Learn where your audience is active

After you identify your target audience, it’s time to figure out where they hang out online and how they prefer to interact with brands. Do they spend most of their time on Instagram? Do they prefer trade publications over corporate blogs? Understanding where your target audience is most active online (and offline) will help you deliver your message on the right platforms.

3. Create relevant content

Your content is the message you’re sending to your target audience. Try to understand their unique needs and struggles and create content that answers them. Consider creating blog posts, email newsletters, social media content, ads, videos, or other content to share in relevant communities and use data to create more of the stuff your target audience loves.

4. Use targeted advertising

“Create and they will come” isn’t always true, especially for new merchants.

Use targeted ad campaigns to reach your audience on the platforms they’re active on. Google ads and social media ads all offer advanced targeting capabilities to help you reach the people who matter. You can target your campaigns based on various characteristics and behaviors of your audience, including their age, location, online interests, life stage, job role, and income. This ensures your ads are only shown to people who will more likely be interested in your brand and products.

6. Create a referral program

Referral programs encourage your existing customers to recommend your products to their friends and family—a.k.a. people who are likely to be similar in wants, needs, and characteristics.

An old but relevant Nielson study shows that recommendations from family and friends are the most credible form of advertising, and incentivizing happy customers with cash back, future discounts, and free products is a great way to foster closer relationships with your existing customers.

7. Use hashtags on social media

The right hashtags on social media channels like Instagram and TikTok can extend your reach and engage your target audience. Find hashtags that are trending in your niche and incorporate them into posts on your social media channels. This will ensure you show up in the feeds of people who are actively searching for that hashtag and relevant content.

8. Stay in touch with your audience

When you’ve managed to reach your target customers, the last thing you want to do is leave them hanging or disappear completely. Stay in touch with the people you reach by encouraging them to sign up for your email list, sending regular, relevant emails, and continuing to connect with them on their favorite social media platforms.

How to reach your target audience on specific platforms

Different platforms call for different tactics. Here are some key ways you can increase your visibility and reach your target audience on major social channels.

How to reach your target audience on Instagram

• Explore existing audience data in Instagram’s analytics to identify your top-performing content
• Research relevant hashtags and add them to your posts
• Partner with influencers who have an audience you’d like to reach
• Use Instagram polls to find out what your audience wants to see
• Use location tagging to find people who are close to you

How to reach your target audience on Twitter

• Join relevant conversations and Twitter Chats to increase your visibility
• Create custom lists to engage with different audience segments
• Use relevant hashtags in your tweets
• Share content that’s relevant and useful to your target audience
• Tweet consistently to maintain visibility and increase your reach
• Interact with other accounts and share personal commentary

How to reach your target audience on TikTok

• Research and use relevant hashtags so your posts show up in searches
• Engage with your target audience through the comments section
• Partner with relevant TikTok creators

Run TikTok ad campaigns and use the “Promote” feature

How to reach your target audience on YouTube

• Optimize your videos so they show up in relevant searches
• Partner with YouTube creators to spread the word
• Be consistent with your posting schedule
• Research and use hashtags so your videos are easy to find
• Run YouTube ad campaigns to reach the right people

How to reach your target audience for a small business

Defining and reaching your target audience is critical to the success of your small business. When you understand who you’re targeting, what platforms your audience is most active on, and the type of content they need, it’s much easier to promote your brand and sell your products.

Stand out from the competition by nurturing relationships with your target audience. Here’s a recap of how you can do that:

• Define who your target audience is and where they spend their time.
• Create relevant content for your target audience based on their unique wants and needs.
• Choose the channels you’ll focus on to reach your target audience and use platform-specific tactics to increase your visibility.
• Run influencer marketing campaigns to expand your reach.
• Create a referral program to encourage existing customers to share your products with their friends and family.
• Don’t forget about your existing customers! Stay in touch to foster deeper relationships with the people who already buy from you.

How to reach your target audience: Takeaways

It’s much easier to sell your products and grow your ecommerce store when you’re targeting the right people on the channels they prefer. The more data you get on your existing customers, the more you can hone in on niche audience segments to ensure you’re delivering highly relevant content on the most effective platforms.

When you’re just getting started, make sure you have a defined target audience. Then, figure out where that audience spends their time, create relevant content, and use tactics like partnering with influencers, incorporating hashtags, and referral programs to help you reach them.