When I think back to the marketing of my childhood (print media, billboards, TV commercials), I can’t believe the marketing power that we have sitting at our fingertips today.

Instead of broad-stroke campaigns based on geography, brands are now able to target consumers in unique segments and offer genuinely personalized experiences (with minimal money spent).

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The success of this comes down to your audience profile. This easy-to-overlook step in consumer research allows you to personalize your campaign’s messaging to reach those most likely to convert. You can then limit the amount of spend wasted on underperforming ads.

Below, I’ll share best practices for building an audience profile and go over examples that can light the way. Let’s go!

Table of Contents: 

• • What is an audience profile?
  • Why is audience profiling important?
  • Benefits of Audience Profiling
  • The Audience Profiling Process
  • What information should I include in an audience profile?
  • Audience Profile Examples
  • How to Write an Audience Profile
  • Audience Profiling Best Practices
  • Media Audience Profile

What is an audience profile?

An audience profile details important complete cell phone number list information related to a hypothetical, but representative, buyer you’ve decided to target for a specific marketing or advertising campaign.

An audience profile isn’t a broad, general group. Instead, it’s one fictitious person who you want to take action.

Remember, an audience profile isn’t the same as a target market and buyer persona.

• Your target market includes every single prospective buyer for your product or service. For instance, perhaps you sell software that can be used for different use cases in different industries. In this case, a target market includes the prospects in each industry who could benefit from your product — all with different needs, goals, and challenges.
• Meanwhile, a buyer persona is the final person who will ultimately purchase your product or service. In many cases, you‘ll want to market to anyone who can influence the final buyer. For instance, your audience profile might be a social media manager, even though the buyer persona is a company’s CMO, because she’ll have the final sign-off.

The audience profile is modeled after benefits of audience profiling your business’ target audience and is meant to help you create a more personalized, higher-converting campaign.

Why is audience profiling important?

There’s a big difference between knowing your audience and assuming you know your audience. When you truly know your audience, you can create effective campaigns that speak to (or solve) their challenges, goals, and pain points. This is a superpower for your marketing efforts.

Through audience profiling, you can:

• Optimize your strategies. Your marketing strategies should evolve with your customers‘ changing needs, preferences, and behaviors. Audience profiling ensures that you’re meeting the right audience at the right time through the right channels.
• Drive more loyalty. By building targeted and relevant campaigns, marketers can create meaningful experiences for their customers. When you do this consistently, your customers will trust that you can meet their expectations, resulting in greater brand loyalty.
• Gain a competitive advantage. By knowing your customers better than your competitors do, you can tailor your products, services, and marketing strategies to meet customer needs and stand out from the crowd.