The 6 Types of Target Audiences and How to Find Them

Every business's success (or failure) comes down to a clear definition of exactly whom it is trying to reach with its ads, content, and communications and who will eventually buy its product or service.

This article will help you find your target audience and reach your potential customers effectively. We'll explore various ways you can pinpoint your ideal consumer within the target market, from traditional market research methods to AI-powered tools. 

What is a target audience?

A target audience (TA) is a pool of individuals, businesses, or organizations potentially interested in a specific product or service. This group represents the key focus of any business's marketing and sales efforts.

Potential customers are grouped into target audiences by a set of characteristics. The target audience should meet four specific criteria:

1. Size: The group must be large enough to ensure the potential for business growth.
2. Interest: They must be interested in the product or service. 
3. Financial availability: The TA needs to have the potential to generate profit. This means people should be financially capable and willing to spend money on the company's products.
4. Accessibility: The consumer must be accessible in terms of product or service distribution. For example, if the audience is concentrated in remote regions, it's essential to have fast delivery.

Why must you know your target audience?

Defining the target audience is one of the crucial parts of forming a marketing strategy and directing any communication on behalf of the business. Understanding the TA allows businesses to:

• Attract customers effectively
• Persuade customers to make a purchase
• Identify what customers actually need
• Discover what's missing in any given product
• Determine which customers bring the most money
• Understand why customers leave (churn) and how to retain them

According to the HubSpot report on marketing in 2024, around 94% of marketers believe personalization increases sales and the likelihood of a contact becoming a repeat customer. And this is how finding and understanding your TA will influence your ad costs and ROAS. 

What are the types of target audiences?

The first step of market research is considering both primary and secondary customers. The primary target audience consists of individuals or businesses that directly buy and use the company's products or services. These are the main customers, the ones who make the purchasing decisions, and are the primary users of the product or service.

• For a baby food company, the primary target audience would be parents or caregivers of infants.
• For a B2B software company, the primary target audience might be IT managers in mid-sized companies.

The secondary target audience includes those who don't make direct purchases but can influence the buying decisions of the primary audience. This group might include influencers and “gatekeepers” who control access to the primary audience.

• For the same baby food company, the secondary audience consists of doctors, nurses, and whoever else advises young parents on their baby’s diet. 
• For a B2B company, the secondary TA includes influencers, authors of tech reviews, and SaaS product comparison platforms.

Both primary and secondary groups of potential customers can be organized by six types of target audiences.

1. Demographics

Demographic information includes gender, race, nationality, age, and religion. Despite that, demographic groups may have completely different worldviews and needs. For example, older people are unlikely to be interested in buying cutting-edge tech, while teenagers and young adults certainly will be.

2. Interest

These can include anything from sports, music, fashion, travel, and food to social causes. By understanding these interests, companies can create targeted messages and content that capture their audience's attention. Determining the interests of the target audience involves a deeper study of their values, beliefs, hobbies, and passions. 

3. Psychographics

Psychological characteristics influence a person's behavior, character, habits, dreams, goals, and principles. If these characteristics are taken into account, it's possible to understand what products with what name and packaging design a potential client will respond to.

4. Lifestyle

Income level, education, and living conditions are fundamental factors of the target audience. For example, it's not profitable to advertise an expensive restaurant in areas where the average salary level equals the average bill for dinner.

5. Purchase Intention

Target audiences can be categorized by their level of interest. While “cold” TA is a potential customer group, they do not show interest in the product or service, and their knowledge of the company may be minimal. The goal of interaction with this TA is to create awareness about the company and interest in purchasing. 

The “warm” audience has already interacted with the company or product in some way. These are website visitors, social media subscribers, or newsletter recipients. They are aware of our company and may show interest in our offers, but they need additional motivation to make a purchase. The best way to direct the attention is with retargeting, personalized content, and special offers. 

The “hot” audience shows clear interest and is generally ready to buy. They are at the last stage of the sales funnel and have a high level of readiness to act. Personal offers, reminders, and simplifying the purchasing process will help them convert. 

6. Subculture

This parameter targets a specific group of people united by the culture within a larger society. This includes ethnic groups, religious communities, or generational subcultures.

While demanding a careful approach and constant self-check for biases and stereotypical thinking, it is an important type of target audience to define. It is tightly related to demographics, lifestyle, and psychology but focuses on the behavior of groups, not individuals.  

Target audience vs. target market

While often used interchangeably, target audience and target market are distinct concepts in marketing. For example, a company selling sports clothing might have a target market of all athletes, fitness enthusiasts, and street fashion adepts. However, for a campaign promoting a new line of hiking boots, their target audience within that broader market would specifically be trekking enthusiasts.

So, a target market is a broader group of potential customers to whom a company wishes to sell its products or services, while the target audience is a more specific part of the target market. It refers to the group of people a company targets with a particular marketing message or campaign.

The most common division of target markets is “business to business” (B2B) and “business to consumer” (B2C). There are also less common market types, such as “business to administration” (B2A) or “direct to consumer” (D2C), but let’s look at the two most common target markets:

• B2C is a market segment where people buy goods and services for personal use. It is characterized by a large volume of transactions with low sales costs. Most decisions in B2C are made relatively quickly and impulsively.
• The B2B segment is focused on other companies and enterprises. B2B products improve business processes or solve problems of other companies. It differs from B2C in the scale of transactions, higher average checks, a special decision-making process for purchases, and promotion methods.

5 ways to find your target audience

Finding the target audience might seem overwhelming, but it’s a very interesting experience. While small business owners can directly connect to their customers, a bigger enterprise might find a new niche or unexpected ways to improve a product.

The process is not all marketing plan creation: it’s part detective work, part creative theories, and part looking for Waldo.

For example, you have a brick-and-mortar store, and you feel like it’s time to take your niche within the world of online advertising. You have been successfully running your business Page on Facebook for a while, and now you’re ready to launch your campaign.

Whom do you target with your ads? The basic solution is to get the existing audience insights from Meta Business Suite. But what if you need to reach a larger target market and gather more precise insight?   

1. Current customer base analysis

Search your CRM for various conditions such as gender, age, area of residence, education, hobbies, family/children status, etc. It's important to focus only on those characteristics that are relevant to your product or service and not to lose yourself in irrelevant details.

2. Competitor research

Collect and analyze information about competitors and specific market segments. This includes prices, preferences of the TA, their financial state, and offers already on the market. It allows you to understand how to engage with customers and what the prospects are in this area.

3. Market research (surveys, focus groups)

Analyze the target audience through surveys on the website, social networks, and focus group creation. Include questions about personal needs and offer opinions about the company's product. This approach can be expensive or time-consuming, but it can provide you with unique insight and valuable ideas. 

4. Social media insights

Social media have native tools (such as the Meta Ads Manager) you can use to understand your audience better, yet digging through all that data can be too much. If you're advertising on Meta, Madgicx has tools to make your targeting easy:

• AI Marketer suggests relevant audiences for you to test; no guessing is needed.
• Audience Launcher helps you set up multiple promising audiences in one click.
• Audience Studio helps you target consumers based on their interests.

Sign up for a free trial and see how much easier your work can become with those professional tools.

5. Google Analytics for website visitor data

Use web analytics platforms to gather data on your website visitors, including demographics, interests, and behavior. This will allow you to find the areas of focus for your landing pages and blog. It will also show how customers find your page and give you some hints about the direction of your marketing efforts.

Common mistakes in creating target audience profiles include:

1. Using one-time events or single data sources to determine the TA, ignoring possible changes in consumer behavior
2. Too many guesses and speculative conclusions instead of factual information, feedback, and work with clients
3. Being out of touch with customers and partners. As a result – ignoring their pains, needs, motives
4. Lack of precision: The results of all changes in marketing policy should be recorded and analyzed

Target audience examples

Every business's target audience is different. Even seemingly competing businesses aiming for larger target markets have differentials in TA descriptions. Those might be as subtle as a minor subculture distinction or as major as an income tier.

With many professional instruments available to users, it’s easy to extrapolate the target audiences of major companies, which we will use as examples. 

Booking

Booking.com's target audience is a wide demographic and consists of global travelers of all ages who are interested in accommodations and other travel-related services. The audience profile includes:

• Primarily 25-34 years old (25.84%), followed by 35-44 (20.62%) and 45-54 (18.53%)
• Equally split between female (50.51%) and male (49.49%) users
• Global audience with significant traffic from the United States (9.06%), United Kingdom (7.66%), Germany (6.63%), Italy (6.62%), and France (5.86%)
• Interested in travel and tourism, technology, and news
• Highly engaged users, spending an average of 8 minutes 15 seconds per visit and viewing 7.48 pages

This audience is interested in travel planning, finding good deals on accommodations and transportation, and staying informed about travel-related news and technology. They are tech-savvy and use multiple online resources for their travel needs.

Apple 

Apple had almost fifty years to mold its target audience from tech-savvy consumers and professionals interested in innovative electronic devices, design, and software. The audience profile includes:

• Primarily 25-34 years old (31.95%), followed by 35-44 (20.37%) and 18-24 (18.92%)
• Predominantly male (59.24%) with a significant female audience (40.76%)
• Global audience with a strong presence in the United States (32.22% of traffic) and significant traffic from Japan, the United Kingdom, India, and Canada
• Interested in technology, video games, and web design

This audience is likely interested in cutting-edge technology, design, and digital services, focusing on both personal and professional use of electronic devices and software.

Fenty

Fenty Beauty's target audience primarily comprises beauty and cosmetics enthusiasts promoting inclusivity and diversity. The audience profile includes:

• Primarily 25-34 years old (33.45%), followed by 35-44 (19%) and 18-24 (15.41%)
• Overwhelmingly female (77.52%), with a notable male audience (22.48%)
• Strong presence in the United States (56.73% of traffic) with a significant international audience, particularly in the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and the Netherlands
• Interested in beauty, cosmetics, fashion, apparel, and shopping

This audience is likely interested in inclusive beauty products, fashion-forward cosmetics, and brands emphasizing diversity. They are tech-savvy shoppers who engage with multiple beauty and fashion brands online. 

Researching your target audience can lead to unexpected findings. According to the study featured on Statista, “the most important aspect of life for U.S. Fenty Beauty users is a happy relationship, followed by being successful, and safety/security.”

How to reach your target audience

After you have identified your TA, it’s now time to reach them. In this section, you will learn some proven strategies for connecting to your target audience and building lasting and mutually profitable relationships with them. To effectively reach your target audience, consider the following paths:

Choose the right social media platforms

Instead of spreading your marketing efforts thin, focus on the platforms where your target audience spends most of their time. If you're targeting professionals, LinkedIn might be your best bet.

For a younger audience, consider platforms like TikTok or Instagram. If your audience is more visually oriented, Pinterest or Instagram could work well. Research which platforms your TA uses most frequently and focus your efforts there.

Create targeted content

Develop content that speaks directly to your audience's interests, needs, and pain points. This could include:

• Blog posts and other texts with SEO in mind
• Videos that show your product or service
• Infographics and digests for complex information
• Webinars for showing extended features of your product
• Podcasts and expert interviews on industry trends 

Remember to tailor your content's tone, style, and format to what resonates best with your TA.

Use paid advertising 

There are billions of active users on major social media platforms. Paid advertising on Meta platforms, TikTok, or Google Ads allows you to reach your target audience with absolute precision. 

Add a professional advertising platform like Madgicx, and create your Meta ads in a few clicks by an AI Ad Generator. You will also have great tools for finding and targeting your audience and a dashboard for tracking the performance of your ads across multiple platforms. 

Participate in community events

These could be conferences or trade shows, local festivals, virtual conferences, or networking events. These events provide opportunities to interact with your TA directly, build relationships, and gain insights into their needs and preferences.

Collaborate with influencers

Partnering with influencers doesn't necessarily mean celebrities: micro-influencers with smaller, more engaged followings can be very effective. Consider collaborating on content with those who best represent your TA and track the performance through exclusive promo codes. 

Email marketing

Build an email list and use it to nourish sustainable relationships with your audience. Segment and personalize your emails to increase engagement. Offer valuable content or for free to encourage sign-ups.

Customer referral programs

Encourage your existing customers to refer others matching your TA by offering perks and making it easy for customers to share your product or service with others.

Conclusion

Identifying and understanding your target audience is the foundation of a successful business strategy, not an idle marketing exercise. Create more effective marketing campaigns, improve products, and build stronger customer relationships by understanding who your customers are. 

Finding your target audience is an ongoing process. Markets change, consumer behaviors evolve, and new opportunities emerge. Stay curious, keep analyzing your data, and be ready to adapt. With the right tools and strategies, you can continually deepen your understanding of your target audience, advance your marketing, and grow your business.