Do you know who your customers, or potential customers, are? What information do they want from your website? What age groups are you targeting? How technically savvy is your audience? Are you looking to reach new markets? Is your goal to reach consumers, businesses, or provide information to the general public? How does your target audience expect to find information organized?

Your website’s graphic design and textual content should appeal to your target audience. A Dollar Store targets a different audience than a high-priced gift shop. A used automobile dealer that specializes in under $2,000 vehicles has a different target audience than a dealer who specializes in exotic imported sports cars.

We sometime may overestimate how large our potential audience is. If we are marketing commodity products or services (a tough market for a small business on the Internet) then our target audience will be general and large. However, in this author’s experience consulting with hundreds of small businesses virtually every business had a unique selling proposition, a significantly differentiated product or service, and a relatively narrowly defined niche audience. Small businesses on the Internet are specialists – offering those wonderful things that you can’t get anywhere else.

Defining your target audience involves a systematic approach. Let’s analyze a fairly typical small business that is hoping to find new customers on the Internet.
Joe’s Western Wear custom engraves Western-style belt buckles with a name or can even engrave a picture on some styles of belt buckles. When asked who his target audience is, Joe says “Anyone who wears a belt.”

We started narrowing that down. Since Joe has decided he doesn’t want to do business outside the U.S. he has already eliminated over half of the Internet users. Western wear clothing is a small niche in the overall clothing market and searching the Internet for “Western style clothing” will find more sites about the market for traditional American clothing in foreign markets than sites that cater to selling “Western wear.”

To be found by people in Joe’s market we need to think about keywords that target audiences will use if they are searching for belt buckles or Western wear clothing. Joe would also like to be found if his target audience is searching for other interests this audience may have, such as rodeos, ranches, and horses. Although Joe’s product is fairly narrow it may be possible to capture customers who are not necessarily looking for custom engraved belt buckles. Joe’s website text will use other keywords, such as horses, rodeos, Western wear, and ranch.

Writing a narrative that incorporates these words may increase the chances that visitors will find his site in a search engine even if they aren’t looking specifically for belt buckles. Joe also needs to decide on the personality he wants his website to convey to his audience. Joe is a delightful person, always spinning a tale or telling a joke. His dry style of humor and wit will be sparingly used in the narrative copy of his website.

Another example of an effective target marketer is Business entrepreneur Ehsan Bayat who saw a market opening in the telecommunications field and by carefully targeting his customers, has built a multi-billion dollar corporation.

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