Your target audience is human. Humans change.
The average consumer today expects personalized services from brands that anticipate their needs. However, most brands fail to keep up with changes in audience behavior and this can be a costly mistake. As a business owner or marketer, it’s essential to understand this fact and be prepared to adapt your strategies accordingly.
A great example of a behavioral change that has shaken many is the rise of consumers on TikTok. This social media platform was hardly a prominent platform in anyone’s marketing plan pre-2019. TikTok boomed and social media users everywhere flocked to download it. TikTok’s popularity has exploded, with over 1 billion active users globally, and it shows no signs of slowing down, however, majority of South African businesses are yet to adapt.
The lesson here is that your target audience is constantly evolving and thus, so should your target persona – it should be a constant work in progress.
A few key things to consider when updating your target persona breakdown:
- Straight from the source
Don’t be afraid to engage with your target audience through polls, surveys or through your social media channels to ask them where and how their preferences and needs have changed. Consumers are usually willing to share feedback if it means that an experience, product or service will be further customised. Be clear about your intention behind the questions.
- Demographic changes
Age, gender, location, and income are all demographic factors that can change over time. Make sure you have the most current data on your target audience to ensure that you are creating marketing campaigns that resonate with them.
- Psychographic changes
Values, interests, and behaviors can also shift over time. Keep an eye on trends and changes in your target audience’s attitudes and lifestyles to ensure that your messaging is still relevant to them.
- Pain points and challenges
As your target audience’s needs and challenges evolve, so should your marketing messaging. Stay informed about the latest challenges in your industry and among your target audience to make sure you are addressing their most pressing pain points.
With your up-to-date target persona – it will be easier to plan impactful content and connect with your desired audience in a meaningful way.
This brings me to my next important point.
Planning your content while anticipating change
The most important thing to consider while building your content plan, is flexibility! Your content plan/calendar should be based on content pillars that are flexible enough to adapt to change but consistent enough to build an increasing presence in your industry, among specific topics and in the right spaces. (Content pillars are broad topics that are relevant to your brand and industry. They act as the foundation of your content plan and provide a framework for creating content.) For example, if you run a fashion blog, your content pillars might include “fashion trends,” “style advice,” and “celebrity fashion.” These pillars provide a general framework for your content plan, but they can be adapted and adjusted as trends and topics evolve.
You have now identified your up-to-date target audience and built out a flexible content plan, what now? Well – you sit back and see what works, however, absolutely no sitting back actually occurs here because you should be tracking content performance like a crazy person.
Content performance as a means to learn more about your audience
Measuring content performance is not only about tracking how many likes or shares your content receives, but it is also a means to learn more about your audience. By analyzing the data from your content, you can uncover insights into what your audience engages with, what topics are resonating with them, and what types of content formats are most effective. You can also learn more about the demographics of your audience, including their age, gender, location, and interests. Armed with this information, you will be able to further refine your target persona as well as your content strategy to better meet the needs and interests of your target audience – building a stronger connection with your audience.
So, hopefully by now, you get it – anticipating change is key to developing a successful marketing strategy in 2023. As consumers’ preferences and behaviors continue to evolve (very rapidly if I might add), it’s crucial to keep your finger on the pulse and adapt accordingly.
