Do you feel as though you’re screaming into the digital abyss, yet no-one is hearing you? It is likely that you’re failing to target the correct online audience.
As a result, you are likely missing opportunities that will help your business to thrive online.
How well do you know your online audience?
What is the dominant demographic of your audience? How old are they? What is their gender? Where do they live? How much do they earn? What do they care about? What other brands do they like and how do they prefer to shop? Which social platforms do they favour? And what times are they most active online…?
A digital audit (and audience profile) are efficient and effective ways for businesses to understand the complexities of their online audience. Also, regularly reviewing your analytics will help you better understand your audience.
What is a digital audit and audience profile?
A digital audit reviews a business’ online presence and provides insights and recommendations based on its findings. Not all digital audits are created equal. The most reliable digital audit will be performed by an independent auditor. This ensures transparency and objectivity. It should also take a comprehensive look at your entire digital footprint. A digital audit that focuses on one area only (such as SEO or Meta Ads) will miss vital information that could be affecting other areas of a business’ digital presence.
Audience profiling specifically examines who is visiting your site, how they are engaging with your brand and any missed opportunities to reach potential audiences.
Why it matters – the importance of knowing your online audience
A better understanding of a business’ online audience means a better return on investment. It enables smarter decisions to be made. Audience profiling identifies an audience’s common traits and behaviours so that you can plan and hone your marketing activity accordingly. For instance, your audience will impact choices around target groups and geo-targeting, language and tone of voice, key purchase drivers, post times and digital medium (video, photo or text) and so on. As a result, your audience will be better engaged with your content, and most importantly, will be more likely to convert to paying customers.
Understanding your audience helps you:
- Target your optimal audience
- Improve your reach with SEO keywords and PPC campaigns
- Drive traffic to your website
- Increase user engagement
- Increase conversion rates
- Put your digital budget to its best use
- Create effective retargeting campaigns
A healthy marketing budget alone will not translate to sales and growth. Many marketing platforms offer multiple targeted ad campaign options. As a result, it can be confusing to know the best approach. The findings in a digital audit will help you learn how to capture a greater qualified audience, increasing conversion rates. An audit report should include actionable advice on the best ways to spend your marketing and SEO budgets so that your investment pays dividends.
Where is your audience?
Often, distribution channels fail to reach the geographical areas where your product service is in the highest demand. This is where postcode heatmaps can help. With this technology, interest-based hotspots can be identified. It can also show gaps in your audience reach, and help plan where to consider opening retail stores and distributors.
Learn what motivates your potential customers. Speak their language and put your digital channels to their best uses in order to reach a qualified audience, drive quality traffic and improve engagement and sales.
Learn more about IDA Digital Audits and Audience Profile reports. Got any questions? Contact us for more information. We’re excited to help your small business thrive and gain a competitive advantage.
