Target Audience

What is a Target Audience?

A Target Audience is defined as the group of individuals, or for email marketing purposes the specific list or segment, at which a campaign is aimed.

It’s the target demographic for each marketing effort.

It’s also who would be most likely to convert, based on each targeted email campaign you send.

For example, if you owned a plumbing company, your target audience would be homeowners or landlords.

It’s important to remember that the target audience is who is most likely to purchase your goods or services and not necessarily for whom the goods and services are intended.

Take, for example, a toy store. Yes, kids (of all ages) will play with the toys. However, more often than not it’s parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles who are most likely to be buying the toys.

Why is it important to find a Target Audience for each email you send?

In our guide, What Makes a Great Email, we discussed that content makes an email great.

However, subject line, email copy and a Call To Action are only half of what we said makes for great emails.

Your target audience is the other part of what will make your emails great.

To paraphrase an old saying, greatness is in the eye of the beholder.

In the above examples of inbox overload, all could have been avoided had the subscribers been able to relate to the tone and content of the emails. That would have made those emails great to those users.

This is why it’s imperative to make sure each campaign you send is directed towards the correct target audience.

After all, we’ve all surely heard the famous John Lydgate quote, that was also famously shared by Abraham Lincoln.

…you can’t please all of the people all of the time.

A lot of the time, your whole contact list will not be interested in all of the emails you want to send. However, a targeted email to the right audience is far more likely to find a happy audience.

Are your emails being sent to the appropriate audience?

It’s important to serve the needs and interests of each subscriber. A targeted audience means a segment of your list(s) filled with individuals who are pleased with the emails they’re receiving.

In 2015, nearly 80% of all email marketing ROI was a result of being sent to the correct target audience!

Each will give you an additional peek into the lives of your subscribers and help you know who they are as people. After all, remembering that there are people behind the email addresses you’re sending to is perhaps the most important part of understanding a target audience.