5 Strategies to Effectively Reach Your Target Audience

Reaching your target audience and properly communicating with them is important to growing your small business. Reaching the right audience provides visibility into the services you offer, builds brand credibility, and begins to form valuable relationships.  

Here are our five tips to reach your target audience and leverage your key messaging to grow a successful, independent business.

1. Define Your Target Audience

Defining your target audience is an important first step. This will help make sure that all the effort you put into the steps below make it to the right people. To do this, you will need to have a solid understanding of the goods and services you are offering. Theen, consider who benefits the most from your business. Next, look at your past and current clients to see where there is an overlap in similarities. Lastly, consider your competition and their client base. 

Learn more: How to Determine Your Target Clients as a Consultant 

2. Learn Where Your Target Audience is Active

Once you define your target audience, consider where this group spends their time and how they communicate. Is your target audience well represented on social media or online communities? Are they likely to attend industry conventions? Do they read trade publications? By learning about your client’s world, you can narrow down areas of focus when it comes to marketing your services. Wherever your audience is, that’s where you—and your message—need to be. 

Up next: 8 Effective Marketing Strategies for Consultants 

3. Target Language in Your Messaging

When you reach out to your target audience, talk to them in a way that speaks to their specific wants and needs. If there is key industry terminology or jargon, be sure to use it and use it properly. When your audience feels understood, they will gain confidence both in you and in your business.  

Whether you’re putting out a blog post, tweet, or newsletter, your content should be both entertaining and informative. You know your audience’s interests, so make sure your communications are readable and shareable. 

Check out: 5 Tips to Write Like a Marketer and Build Your Business 

4. Use Multiple Social Media Channels

With the many communication channels available today, limiting your focus can cause you to overlook opportunities to reach potential clients. While your industry or client demographics may lead you to focus efforts on one or two platforms, consider including additional channels, particularly through methods with relatively low barriers to entry such as social media. 

Keep in mind that different social networks serve different functions, so choose ones that your target audience is most likely to frequent. When communicating across your chosen channels, keep messaging consistent to build a strong brand reputation. 

Try it: 5 Ways to Promote Your Consulting Business on Social Media 

5. Take Advantage of Referrals

Take advantage of the connections you’ve already made. It’s likely that clients you’ve worked with have colleagues in their networks with similar needs, so don’t hesitate to ask for a recommendation from a client you have a strong relationship with. They will likely be happy to connect you with someone they feel could benefit from your services. In addition, requesting referrals from colleagues in your field or from vendors you’ve worked with can be another way to find target clients. 

As you begin to find and reach out to your audience, think about how you can consistently measure your efforts to ensure your approach is working. If possible, build in a few concrete KPIs to evaluate progress. Your audience might not respond to your messaging as planned, and in this case, it may be necessary to re-evaluate your target audience or messaging approach. Continue tweaking your strategy and rework these steps until you find what works best for your business. 

Check out: How to Get Client Referrals