What An Ideal Audience Is (And What It Isn't)
So much marketing advice out there starts with “get to know your audience.”
Time for a new visual brand? The first question your designer will ask is “Who is your ideal audience?”
Want to create better content? Your favourite social media expert will probably tell you to start by getting to know your audience and what they need from you.
Need to write sales copy that converts? Collect that voice of customer data. (Which is just a fancy way of saying “get to know your audience.”)
My point is that I’m sure, by now, you’re very aware that you should do this work. The problem? No one’s rushing to tell you how. So you’re left guessing—without so much as an idea of what the end goal should be. (This is how business owners make some of the audience “mistakes” I outline in this post!)
In this post (and with a bunch of others, too) I’m going to be the one to teach you the how. We’ll start by defining the end goal: What your audience description should look like when you’re done with it. Then, we’ll get you started on the “how”, with a few prompts and questions you can steal as you dig into this work.
3 Things An Ideal Audience Isn’t
#1 A FICTIONAL AVATAR
When I say “your ideal audience”, I am not talking about a sterile avatar. This should not be some random person you made up.
A fictional person who’s perfect for your business in every way or has no faults doesn’t actually exist so writing up a lengthy description about them doesn’t help anyone. It robs you of your time, and it robs your audience of the ability to tell you their real story. (Especially if you become so focused on the fictional person that you stop listening and talking to real people.)
People will tell you to “boil down” your ideal audience into a quick avatar and a list of demographics (more on demographics below). Don’t listen! When you define your ideal audience, detail and depth are the goals.
You know your ideal audience member wasn’t built or birthed or raised to be your customer. And that they’re a whole person, they were whole before you, and they’ll be whole after you. So resist the urge to smooth away their humanity with an avatar that’s so perfect, it’s a little creepy—like Janet from The Good Place.
Leave room for dimension, imperfection, nuance, and complexity. That’s where the story is. And that’s where the beauty is.
Along these lines, I also want you to think about them outside the context of your business. It IS relevant if they’re a dad or they love their dog more than anything or they’re millennials and will always laugh at a Mean Girls reference.
Action Tip: If you’re used to a more “sterile” approach to defining an audience, ask yourself this: How would you describe yourself to a company you love buying from? What details would you include about yourself? What parts of your story lead you to their brand?
#2 YOUR AUDIENCE IS NOT YOU
Hear me out on this one.
You may have a TON in common with your audience, but they are still not you. So don’t make the mistake of not talking to them because you think you “already know” what they’ll say.
It’s amazing to look for commonalities between people. The world wants to tell us we’re all individuals who are totally separate and different. So I love that your instinct is to focus on what you share.
But if your default setting is to think that YOU are your ideal audience, start to focus on what makes your audience members different and unique from you. There will be a ton of richness there.
A word of warning: Be cautious of over-identifying with your audience on any element of your life that may change in the future. Even if you feel like you really ARE your audience right now, you might not be forever.
I have tons of clients in the pediatric space who started sharing content when they had toddlers, but whose kids are now in school. I also have clients in other spaces, who bonded with their audiences over things like infertility, postpartum, and poor work-life balance—but then struggled to redefine the relationship when their lives moved forward while their audience members’ didn’t.
#3 THEY’RE NOT A LIST OF DEMOGRAPHICS
If I ask you who your ideal audience member is and you tell me that she is a woman, age 25-40, a mom, she has a lot on her plate, she lives in the U.S., she’s the primary parent, and she shops at Target…I will call bullshit.
Not because that isn’t true—maybe it is! But because those details are not what make her your ideal audience member. She’s not buying from you because she’s 32 and likes Target. (Well, unless you run a Target!)
That audience member is buying from you because, for example, she is run down from caring for her kids and you offer a spark of light in her day. Because she’s lonely and you feel like a trusted mom-friend to her. Because she doesn’t know what to feed her kids, which makes her feel like a bad mom, and you help her solve both the food problem and the “bad mom” problem. Or because she doesn’t remember how to feel beautiful, and you give her tips for what to buy and wear—but also give her so much love and encouragement, which makes her feel worthy again after all these years.
So yes, write down their demographics. Sure. Fine. I won’t be mad at you for it. But please, please, please do not stop there.
(Keep reading for how to go deeper!)
3 Things Your Audience Is
#1 COMPLEX
#2 NUANCED
#3 HUMAN
I think it’s important to remember that yes, we are marketing and selling things. It’s not bad, and there’s no shame in that. That’s what businesses do. But, we’re marketing and selling to real people. So despite what a lot of pushy, bro-y, growth hack-focused marketing advice out there might tell you, please don’t ever feel bad or “soft” or “sensitive” for keeping that front of mind.
How To Get To Know Your Ideal Audience
If things you’ve learned or read pushed you to go “colder” than you wanted to—or if you feel pressure to “boil down” your audience until they’re just a bunch of numbers or sterile avatars that remove all their complexity and depth, well, this is the antidote to that.
Here are a few prompts and questions to help you flesh out the “whole person” view of your audience:
Describe who you consider your ideal audience to be.
What are they trying to achieve that your product/service helps them do?
What are their pain points/frustrations/hesitations?
What’s your ideal client’s most pressing problem/challenge right now?
What do they want? What’s their deepest desire?
What don’t they want?
What’s their biggest fear?
What do they believe fundamentally about their problem/challenge?
What do you want them to believe about you?
Yes, you are guessing at the answers—for now. But the next step is to confirm your answers or fix them by talking to your audience directly. (Also known as collecting “voice of customer” data.) I’ll cover that in future posts.
Listening Is The Best Marketing Move You’ll Ever Make
If you’re an empath like me—or if you just don’t feel good about that “people as numbers” way of marketing—GOOD! Lean into it.
Listen more than you talk when you’re with your audience. Hear their stories, make connections, and hold space for their struggles, pain points, and deep desires. What you’ll hear is beautiful and powerful.
Yes, it will help you sell later. But it won’t feel like any selling you’ve done before. Because you’ll be so genuine in what you’re saying and how you want to help—and you’ll be able to use your audience’s actual words, stories, and pain points to share what you do—instead of writing something you’re second-guessing and just hoping it hits the mark.
Michelle Obama says “People are hard to hate up close.” Well, when your audience is “up close” in your mind and heart, gross marketing is hard, too. So keep your heart open. Lean into your humanity and that of your audience. And trust me, the truest, more impactful marketing you’ve ever done will follow.