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Defining your target audience is probably one of the most important milestones in creating your marketing strategy. In this article, I will share with you proven secrets on how to define your nonprofit’s target audience.
When people first start their nonprofit or business, they often worry about limiting themselves. They are passionate about the new products or services they offer, and want them to be available to as many people as possible. At times, this can cause them to forget about defining their target audience.
Sometimes people can become annoyed when I suggest testing their product on a select group, in order to learn more about the product response. They have invested so much time and energy in creating their new product, and are eager to rush the new product or service to the general public.
As a YouHelp.com Fundraising and Development Coach, one of my main focuses is bringing the client to the point where they acknowledge the need for defining their target audience. Without creating a target audience, your product will fall on deaf ears. Marketing is all about communicating, and in order to properly engage you need to know who you are targeting.
“Communicating on social media to everyone, is in essence communicating to no-one!”
Once you come to this point of trust and understanding your demographic, you can then carve out your target audience. This secret coaching tool is fun and very effective. It’s called YouHelp`s Virtual Pledge Drive.
First, I ask my client to close their eyes and make themselves comfortable.
Imagine for a few moments that we are now driving to meet with a potential donor. I ask them to please tell me the name of the neighborhood to enter into our virtual GPS.
About what age is the prospective donor? What is their gender? Will we be meeting a couple? Do they have any children and or grandchildren? Do they have any pets? What are their occupations? Which type of car is in their driveway? What are their hobbies?
Are they native Americans or immigrants? Which types of issues will we discuss at the meeting? What type of common ground will we find out about ourselves during this meeting?
Each answer come with a logical reason. The objective is to get as many details as possible.
Sometimes clients have some trouble with this direction. In order to get the creative imagination rolling, I would suggest different types of typical donors. Then ask them which donor type got them the most excited and why? Each detail adds another color and definition to the picture of the audience
When we finish our exercise, I tell my clients to open their eyes and reflect the drawing of their target audience.
This evaluation can be easily achieved. Simply reach out to your donors and have a chat. Discuss what they like about the cause. This information would be vital in determining who is your target audience.
One of the wonderful things about Facebook is that it’s smart. Which allows you to set up and test smart ads. Get started by plugging in your assumed typical donor/customer profile. This will enable you to target a specific donor profile and their geographic area.
It is very important to evaluate the data after a period of time to learn how correct your assumptions are. Many times promotions have to be tested in various ways. Such as trying different types of groups, locations, and times of the day. This way you can be certain that you have enough correct data to make educated marketing decisions.
Recently Facebook has become more aggressive about demanding higher spending on advertisement campaigns. People are happy to share with you their opinions about your content so be sure to ask them to like or comment. The more feedback you get the more enlightened you will be about the direction you are going in.
Once your target audience has been defined, we will be ready to work on the next step of coaching on how to be an effective communicator to your audience.
To learn more about how your nonprofit or small business can create your target audience, feel free to send me an email to Coach Yitz at Support@YouHelp.com.