K atie c ouric

CHAPTER 2
TARGET YOUR AUDIENCE
argeting can make or break a business. Many products and brands are
capable of reaching a large audience, but knowing the nuances about who
will actually engage with your product or brand is what truly helps create a
significant lasting following and customer base. As we discussed, in order
to scale quickly you will need to find the people who’ll not only share your
messages for you but also buy your products. As we will discuss later in
this chapter, there are different targeting strategies and techniques for
specific goals. Furthermore, reaching the right audience will save you time,
money, and energy.
Let’s say you’re selling women’s yoga pants. It wouldn’t make sense to
target men since they aren’t the ones who will need or use the product
(unless you’re targeting them around a specific holiday and promote the
pants as a gift idea). Or maybe you’re selling Philadelphia Eagles Super
Bowl T-shirts—you wouldn’t want to target fans of the New England
Patriots right after they lost in the 2018 Super Bowl, right? It would be a
waste of your resources. Or imagine that you live in a town where everyone
is vegan. You wouldn’t open a steak house there. Your business wouldn’t
survive.
Targeting the right people allows your business to thrive. And if you
know exactly who your target audience is, the internet—social media in
particular—has made it easier than ever before to listen to consumer
feedback. Clothing companies like Zara completely rely on their buyers’
suggestions for tweaking their designs—corporate headquarters reads
thousands of comments from shoppers and uses that feedback to create the

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next clothing line. It’s a user-generated approach to fast fashion, which they
claim is one of their keys to success.
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This is also part of the reason that
Zara dominates the fashion market—it’s hard for other brands to keep up
with that level of attention to the target market’s feedback.