How & Why to Diversify Your Target Audience

When you have a good thing going, you don’t want to see it end. And you don’t have to...as long as you diversify. Whether it’s making changes to your products/services, to your selling channels, or today's topic of discussion, your target audiences, companies need to switch up something in their marketing approach in order to stay relevant, and to continue to grow their sales year over year.

So why should you evolve your target audience? Quite simply, you need to reach a new group of customers. While it's of course important to nurture and grow the relationship with customers/clients you already have and continue to have them make repeat purchases, you'll eventually need to evolve past them and them alone, as you can't rely on one customer base forever in any market. 

But before you choose your target audience, you need to do your homework. What does a diversified market look like for your brand? It might be expanding into a new geographical location or even a new country. It might be shifting from a men's only focus to target women, too. Maybe it's a change in the age or economic class of your consumer, or switching strategies to include B2B instead of just B2C. Just like when you began researching your primary target audience, you'll need to do the same, if not more, amount of investigation into your new potential customer base, as this will affect the success of this transition.

Once you've identified the demographics, buying behaviors and trends of your newly identified target audience, you'll need to think about how to approach them. Maybe they've heard of your brand, but have a preconceived notion that your products don't fit their needs because of your historical audience settings. Or perhaps they've never heard of your company at all, since they were so far from the mark of who you were attracting previously. Whatever the case may be, you'll need to identify a new way of speaking to your newly found audience that still stays true to your brand voice at its core, but resonates with your new consumer.

This doesn't pertain to just the voice itself and how you structure your sentences, your copy, your ads, etc. It also relates to the means in which you deliver the message. So if you're aging up your demographic, it might be time to hop on the direct mailer train again if it makes sense for your product/service/target. If you're shifting to meet the needs of a lower economic class, consider how they interact with companies on a day-to-day basis.

Take Old Spice for example. The 70+ year old brand made a resurgence a few years back when they decided to consider a new younger demographic, and a new spokesperson in the form of NFL star, Isaiah Mustafah. Several commercials, ads, and memes targeting the desired younger target audience made a splash, causing a viral sensation, and awareness, among a previously untapped market that grew up on Axe and other body brands. The company never changed its logo at all, and while they created new products (based on the success of this campaign), they essentially changed the experience that the consumer had with Old Spice.

Last, but not least, start to think about who will take on the responsibilities associated with this new target audience. Will you need a team to handle a new inbound amount of customer inquiries? Hire staff to grow new sales channels affiliated with your expanded customer base? Design new landing pages to meet the needs of your new demographic? Grow your social media channels to be where your audience is? Be sure to cover all the bases and build the foundation before starting to market your new audience, as you'll want to make sure their customer experience is exactly how you (and they) want it to be.

So what are you waiting for? It's time to start researching, brainstorming and thinking about the next steps for your brand!