Identifying your target audience

Video ProductionVideo Shoot
Table of content
  1. Introduction
  2. Who are they?
  3. Understand your target audience through research
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8 years ago・3 min read

Do you know who your target audience is? Do you know how to speak to them through your video content?

Who are they?

Imagine the situation, a local health service wants to reduce teenage alcohol intake.

They decide to create a public health video with a 50-something-year-old mother figure telling the target audience (13-17-year-olds) that they “shouldn’t be so naughty” and “should be focussing on their school work” instead.

That particular video won’t be taken seriously. It’ll be dismissed and the point will be lost in the patronizing tone of the poorly executed concept.

It’s crucial to understand your target audience once you’ve established who they are. At the beginning of the creative process, make sure you consider who you are creating your video content for.

There is no point saying “everyone” because that is, first of all, a lie and secondly just lazy marketing.

A retirement home video isn’t going to be aimed at a 14-year old boy. Whereas in most cases, the latest sporting computer game would very much be aimed at someone in his demographic.

Understand your target audience through research

Once you have figured out your target audience, be that gender, ethnicity, age group, political stance, and so on, it is then time for considering how that set of people think, how they act and how they perceive you as a brand if they know you at all.

Be smart in you research

There are many ways to research your target audience. Insight is a very powerful tool and the easiest insight to gather is that of speaking directly to a sample of your target audience. This could be anything from people within your business who fit the bill, to an organized focus group.

The question these people on their likes and dislikes, ascertain their behaviors, for example, buying behaviors, if your video is to push a product or a service. Get to know them. If you already have some ideas for your video content then put that to them and ask them for their opinions and their feedback.

Make use of existing database

If your business already has a customer base then you can use them to conduct some research. You could send out customer satisfaction surveys that request details such as age, gender, occupation, etc. You may also wish to ask more specific questions which could influence your future content creation strategies.

What do they do on social media

Use social media to see what your audience already says about you and who else your audience follows online. This will help you gain an understanding of how your audience portrays themselves on the Internet without dealing with you directly.

Learn from other campaigns

Gain inspiration from marketing campaigns that have worked in the past and which sit within your sector and which were aimed at your target audience. Don’t ignore ideas that are proven to have worked, just don’t copy someone else’s ideas outright!

With some planning, research, and educated assumptions you and your business can produce video content which isn’t just a marvel to look at but more importantly something that is engaging and relevant to the right people. Your target audience.

Check out Video Content Inspiration Tool to find out what video trends are global brands follow to create video content.

Ready to start producing amazing video content for your business? Start with browsing our curated video content types.

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