Glossary/Target audience
What is a target audience?
Short answer
A target audience is the specific people a brand wants to reach with its message: how old they are, where they live, what they do and what problem they are looking to solve. In influencer marketing the choice of creator starts here — first you describe who you want to reach, and only then look for a channel those people really read.
What exactly is a target audience?
It is a description of specific people, not of everyone who “could buy”. Age, where they live, stage of life, the situation in which they need the product. The more precise the description, the easier it is to check whether a creator's audience overlaps with it. A product “for everyone” sounds safe, but it gives no clue about who to invite to a collaboration or what they should talk about in it.
How do you describe a target audience before a campaign?
Instead of general slogans, it is worth writing down four things:
Who already buys: age, gender, size of town. You have this data in your shop and in the statistics of your own profile.
The situation in which the product is needed — going back to work after leave, a house move, a first bike of their own.
Worries before buying: what stops people from clicking. That is a ready-made topic for a creator's content.
The place where those people spend their time — specific accounts and formats, not “social media” in general.
Why does the target audience decide which creator you pick?
Because reach on its own buys nothing. Content watched by a random crowd leaves less behind than content that reached a smaller but precisely interested audience. Once you have the group described, the conversation with a creator is short: you ask for the statistics of their audience and see straight away whether it is worth going further. The creator gains too — they know who their channel is useful to and why.
Where to order it or find tasks
Related terms
Words that come up in the same conversations. Each has its own definition in the glossary.
- Niche
- The narrow topic a creator's audience is built around — beauty, food, cars. The narrower the niche, the more accurate the delivery at smaller reach. Read more
- Audience
- The people who actually watch a given creator's content: their age, gender, location and interests. Not the same as follower count — an account can have plenty of followers and a narrow group of real viewers. Read more
- Followers
- The people subscribed to a creator's profile. The number shows the size of the account, but it does not say how many of them really watch and trust — that you check with engagement. Read more
- Nano-influencer
- A creator with an audience of roughly up to 10,000 people. They know their audience almost personally, so they usually have the highest engagement and the lowest rate. Read more
Frequently asked questions
How is a target audience different from a creator's audience?
The target audience is the people you want to reach. The creator's audience is the people who actually follow them. A collaboration makes sense where those two sets genuinely overlap.
How do you check whether a creator has your target audience?
Ask for screenshots from the account statistics: the breakdown by age, gender, countries and cities. A claim in a message is not enough, because only the owner of the profile sees the data.
Can one campaign have several target audiences?
It can, but each one then needs its own message and usually its own creator. One piece of content written for everyone at once rarely convinces anyone in particular, so it is better to split the budget than to blur the message.
