It’d be a mistake to try to build a brand that appeals to everyone. Narrowing in on your ideal audience is one of the most important things you can do. It becomes the foundation of all of your business decisions, from the names you give your products or services to how you market your brand. Once you’ve defined what your niche is, you can position yourself as an expert in your category.

What Is an “Ideal Audience”?

Your ideal audience sometimes referred to as your target audience or target market, is the specific group of people you want to reach. In a simple sense, it’s the people who are going to buy from you, whether you’re selling a product or selling a service.

By defining your ideal audience, you can understand the best content to create and the best channels to use to reach them.

While you want your ideal audience to be narrowly targeted, it’s important to target people at all stages of the buyer’s journey. Rather than focusing just on people who may need your product or service right now, extend it to people who may need those products or services in the future.

Discover Your Data

Chances are you already have some sort of audience, so pay close attention to who’s following you on social media, who’s visiting your website, and who are converting. If you use tools to schedule and analyze your social media presence, chances are you already have access to data about your consumers. Some of the data points you want to look at are age, location, and interests. The more you can get to know about your customers, the better you can target new potential customers.

Check out the Competition

Targeting your competitors engaged following isn’t necessarily the smartest business strategy, but gaining a better understanding of who is buying and using products or services like yours definitely is. Doing a little research about your competition can even help you better understand your specific niche and how you can narrow in on the differences in your target audiences.

Build a Persona 

Once you think you have a good idea about who your ideal audience is, write out an entire profile on them. Get specific! What is their gender? How old are they? Are they married? Do they have children? What is their income level? Where do they live? Once you’ve built out exactly who your ideal audience is, give her a name. It may sound silly, but when you’re stuck trying to come up with new content or figuring out how best to share something, you can think, “What problems is Claire facing?” or “What platform is Claire connecting with me on?”

Your ideal audience may shift and change as your business does, so pay attention to what your data is telling you about your customers, and to what’s working. Continuously checking back in with who your ideal audience is opening up the opportunity to continue narrowing in on exactly who your brand is resonating with and who you should be positioning yourself towards.