Your Audience is Your BFF, and If They're Not, They Should Be!

Understanding your audience like they’re your best friend goes a long way in marketing your brand to your customers.

Building trust from consumers comes only when you've developed a relationship akin to that of friendship; convincing someone that they need something that you have to offer them comes only after trust has been built.

You can't just walk up to someone on the street and tell them they need, in their life, your new pair of boxers, the most incredibly comfortable and life-changing undies if they've only ever worn briefs.

Trying to get someone to buy something when they aren't in the market to do so is next to impossible. Customers hate to be sold to. Most consumers don't even know they need your product until you've done the work to convince them their life wouldn't be the same without it.

A brand and its audience's relationship is comparable to that of old friends. Besties, if you say. Sharing a bond where interactions are natural, supportive and enriching. Only when a brand understands its audience's needs, dreams, challenges, quirks, habits and weaknesses will audiences feel seen and heard, allowing trust to develop and loyalty to emerge.

How to find out who your audience is and way of learning more about them:

1. Conduct Surveys and Polls: Surveys - Use tools like SurveyMonkey or Google Forms to ask questions to your audience to find out more about their preferences. Polls - Run polls on your social media accounts, ask questions in the platform's stories feature for the most engagement and responses, or on your website to gather instant feedback on specific topics. Ways polls can help your business.
   

2. Social Media or Website Analytics: Social Media Analytics - Use analytics tools provided by individual social media platforms to find out more about your audiences' engagement and demographics. Use Brandwatch to gather analytics from all digital media assets in one place. Website Analytics - Tools like Google Analytics can help provide insight into your audiences' engagement on your website, including what pages they visit, how long they stay and how they navigate your pages.
   

3. Social Listening: Monitor Conversations and Participate in Discussions - Social listening tools like Hootsuite can help garner feedback about audience sentiment regarding your brand, competitors, or even your overall industry. Pay attention to what your audience is saying online, their concerns and their praises; both are equally important to understanding your target consumer. Actively participate in relevant social media discussions, forums and community groups. This helps build trust and authenticity with your brand while giving insights into your audience's true feelings.
   

4. Create Customer Profiles and Personas: Use existing customers to gather information such as buying habits, preferences and feedback. Creating customer profiles helps to better understand your existing consumer base while leaving room to create detailed segmented buyer personas. Categorizing your audience into different groups can help to better target their specific needs.
   

5. Customer Feedback and Reviews: Hubspot or SurveyMonkey are some of the most popular tools used by companies to gather customer feedback using website forms or post-purchase emails. 
   

6. Use A/B testing: Testing different approaches to website functions, emails, and advertisements will help determine which resonates most with your specific target audience. Optimizely is one of the most used A/B testing tools for brands. It does most of the work for you.

A brand that listens, adapts and responds is like a friend who can provide comfort and encouragement along the journey.

Being there for your target consumer in their darkest moments and carrying them through to their brightest days, holding their hand through the challenges and offering support to them to be their best selves helps to build confidence.

Knowing your audience’s pains will help you bring them joy when they need it most. Like a loyal friend, a brand is there when needed, offering support, consistency and familiarity.

Just like the special bond with your bff, sharing a deep understanding and a relationship built on trust, a brand and its audience's relationship goes beyond conversions and sales. A brand needs to engage its audience so much so that the audience feels valued, understood and supported.

Engaging your audience through authentic interactions and meaningful experiences can deepen the bond, building on a foundation of trust, loyalty, and mutual respect, creating a lasting connection that stands the test of time.

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