In marketing, the term audience refers to the group of people that the marketing campaign reaches.
This audience may be made up of present and future customers of the company conducting the marketing campaign, but may also include people who are not interested in the company’s product or services. Due to the vague meaning of the term audience, what marketers instead use more often is the term target audience.
The word target audience refers to the group of people that a marketing campaign aims at appealing to. Obviously, the purpose of the marketing campaign is to convert its target audience into customers.
Identifying and characterizing the target audience is a vital step in any marketing campaign. After all, the entire product (service) line is determined by the target audience’s needs and wants. Target audience is identified based on different factors, depending on the company’s focus. Examples of factors that can narrow down the list to a more specific target audience include age group, gender, career/job, geographic region, etc. Most of the time, a combination of these factors is used to determine the target audience.
Even when it comes to basic needs such as food, the target audience is still narrowed down when it comes to distribution and packaging. This encourages purchases from certain groups of people. For example, organic produce are aimed at appealing to health conscious people while TV dinners are aimed at appealing to busy people.
