Your Target Audience: The Checklist

Fans immersed in the electrifying atmosphere of a stadium concert, with one concertgoer raising their hand in excitement amidst the bustling crowd.

Whenever I begin a marketing plan I always start with what the target audience is. Who exactly is this show or exhibition for?  And are there any products and merchandise I could develop to go with the it that my audience would also enjoy?

Earlier today whilst trying to figure out the target audience of a large-scale dance company I thought to myself, do you know what would be really useful? A checklist!

So here it is:

1. Demographics – defined as the statistical characteristics of the population, think about equal opportunities forms, basically everything you fill out on there relates to your personal demographic.  Obviously you don’t need to filter everyone of these down to one answer but you do need to consider each one.

• Age – simply how old is the intended audience

• Gender – Is your work more predominantly targeted towards men or women or unisex?

• Sexuality – Heterosexual, homosexual or bisexual?

• Marital status – Single, Widowed, Married, Separated, Divorced?

• Nationality – not simply where they are from but how your audience refer to their nationality

• Education – what level of education they have attended and what qualifications were obtained

• Income – simply how much is earned whether weekly, monthly or annual.  You may also be interested in what kind of expendable income they have

• Occupation – what is their job?

• Religion

• Social Class – working class, middle class, upper class.  I also like to include aspiring upper class.

• Number of Children

2. Geographics – pretty simply where the audience is located, but there is a little more to think about than that.

• Location – where do they live?

• Area Type – city centres to the middle of the countryside?  What is in their area? What amenities do they have access to?

• Climate – what is the weather like there at a specific time of year? Particularly important when considering international touring.  Think about the temperature when your going.  Think about any potential extreme weather conditions.  This will prevent you touring an outdoor theatre show around India during monsoon season.

• Cultural behaviours – What are the local laws? Are there any traditions to be respected? What is the culture like? I.e. Don’t take Magic Mike on tour to Saudi or Ru Paul’s Drag Race to Dubai.

• Available resources – What do they have available? What kind of community spaces are there?  How do they live?  You’d be unlikely to take a piece revolved around telling stories on facetime to the Scottish Highlands where you wouldn’t be guaranteed mobile signal.

3. Psychographics – This is where we begin to understand the target audience’s personal preferences, how are they living their life?

• Lifestyle – how people live their lives

• Interests – your target audience’s likes and dislikes

• Hobbies – what do they enjoy doing in their spare time?

• Beliefs – what are there politics? Left or Right wing? Are they environmentally conscious?

• Personality – what they are like.  Introvert or extrovert? Analytical? Sociable? Relaxed? Easy going? Lover of Sarcasm? Bit of a hipster?

4. Behavioural Patterns – this is analysis of the decision-making process which goes on when making purchases.

• What do they buy and when?

• How often?

• What leads to purchasing decisions?

• How do they use their purchases?

• Responses and attitude to purchases

So now you have your checklist it’s easy to create a profile for your target audience:

Women aged 25-35 from UK educated to degree level (demographic), sociable extroverts who have a healthy lifestyle and like painting (psychographic) lives in 20 mile radius of Birmingham, West Midlands (geographic) and attends galleries and specialist exhibitions at least once a month, frequent theatre and cinema goers (behavioural)

You’ll soon discover with a detailed checklist like this one it’ll be much easier to create bespoke marketing campaigns tailored to appeal to the exact group you’re looking for!  Why not give it a go? Let me know what your next project is and who you think your target audience is.