Talking about ideal audiences always makes me happy.
I have seen great things happen to food brands that have a clear sense of their brand strategy and understand exactly who they are in business to serve; it makes me happy to talk about it because I have also seen the downside of brands that don’t talk about it, and don’t know themselves or who they serve.
I also love talking about ideal audiences and customer personas because I value personal connections, and that’s what we’re here to do. Although food is required to survive, many of us have deep connections with the food we eat and the brands we choose for a variety of reasons.
So, the intersection of your big idea, understanding your consumer’s unmet need and, last but not least, your customer’s willingness to pay for your solution – that is the sweet spot. That’s where the magic happens when it comes to food marketing.
If you’ve never gone through this exercise of articulating your ideal consumer audience don’t worry, it’s fun! And even if you have gone through this before for your brand, there are always opportunities to revisit and refine your ideal audience for continual improvement of your marketing efforts.
We want to identify these people and deliver solutions they will seek out again and again. So, the first thing we need to do is clearly identify who we are talking to and working to engage. We’re looking for people with similar attitudes and aspirations, as well as similar problems and pain points.
We’re talking about real people here
I always like to start with a reminder that when we talk about our ideal audience, we’re talking about REAL people. The same holds true when we’re talking about our sales numbers … every sale is a person who is parting with their hard-earned cash because they want what you are providing.
So, rather than lump people together in general buckets by demographics alone, I like to get up close and personal about who is buying from us. He or she should be like a friend you consult with daily as you make decisions about your business.
There is one thing to be careful of as you consider your ideal customer. You may have started your company based on your own unmet needs and still think of yourself as your ideal consumer. Necessity is the mother of invention, and I have a huge respect for everyone who sees a problem and tackles it. I love action-oriented people!
BUT, it’s still important to define an ideal consumer profile so you can take off your own personal consumer hat and put on the hat of the consumer we’re going to define. You also need to be able to put on your CEO hat, your operations hat, and all the other hats you wear each day. The key is to look at things from different angles when big decisions are at hand, but always keep your consumer in the center.
What if you don’t choose an ideal audience?
People are afraid to select an audience. Yes, it can be scary if it feels like you’re going to lose customers. But sometimes you have to get small to go big. I say this not because I want you to lose sales – obviously it’s just the opposite! My days are spent working to help you build your business! But, if you don’t carve out what you stand for you won’t mean anything to anybody. You will get lost on the shelf, and we know what happens to those brands.
If defining your ideal audience still seems like it is narrowing your sales opportunities too far, I have another way to think about it. Back in the day we used to think of our “target customer” as represented by a dart board, where your ideal person was the bullseye. You were bound to hit some people around the bullseye as you aimed for the middle. I don’t particularly like the idea of throwing darts at people, so instead I say think of people standing in concentric circles!
The greater clarity you have about your ideal consumers standing in the middle of your circle, the more focused and effective your branding and marketing efforts will be.
Think of a professional sporting event where they are throwing t-shirts and other giveaways out to the fans.
Now picture your concentric circle of people and you’re throwing your product samples out to these people in the center. You want to (and you NEED to) reach that inner ring as your core audience, so you focus on the needs of those in that inner circle and aim there.
In the process, you will naturally reach others around that inner core, or people in your inner core will share your product with those around them. And that’s ok; in fact, that’s great! But if you don’t aim for that inner ring, your throws will be all over the place. You won’t mean anything to anyone, and nobody will be trying to catch your product because they have no idea where you’re aiming at them.
Digging in and getting started
Now that we understand the reason behind determining your ideal consumer audience, let’s get into the nitty gritty of how you can define, or refine, your ideal audience.
- Who have you created your product for? Let’s get specific!
There is a range of options to hone in on your ideal consumer, depending on your budget. You could do extensive quantitative and qualitative primary research to inform market sizing and opportunity along with months of segmentation analysis.
But, the reality is that type of research is out of reach for most companies based on budgets and the amount of time it takes.
Most of you want to move quickly, so you observe, make assumptions, validate, and adjust. You can validate your ideas and assumptions a variety of ways, whether it be qualitative research, secondary information that’s available from 3rd parties, asking your current or potential customers for feedback directly, looking at what your competitors or brands in adjacent spaces who appeal to your same consumer are doing…and the list goes on.
If you work for a natural food or beverage company and want to talk more about how to validate assumptions, jump into the Facebook group and let me know by creating a new post there and we can get into more details.
- Bring your ideal audience to life by creating a persona.
Another term for persona is consumer profile. It is ideal to have just one persona, but sometimes it is necessary to have two. Although, I strongly encourage my clients not to do more than two.
Having a persona puts a face and name to your consumer group that shares similar values, behaviors and goals. We give them a name, face, personality, job and family to paint a picture of what that person would want in real life. Remember, we are talking about real people, even though we are creating a made-up profile to bring them to life.
If this all feels a little too fuzzy for you, keep in mind that this actually makes future decisions more cut-and-dry because between your brand strategy and knowing your consumer you have a great litmus test for what to deliver, how to talk about it and what will resonate.
There are three main buckets to consider for persona development:
- Demographics
- Age
- Household income
- Gender, if it matters
- Geographic influence
- Family composition
- Education
Demographics are all things that can be quantified. If you don’t know these things, this is where you make educated assumptions based on feedback you’ve gotten and available market data.
Over time you will be able to test and learn to see if these assumptions are accurate.
- Psychographics
- Where does this person eat, work and play?
- What do they do for fun?
- Where do they shop for groceries? For other items? Is it mostly online or in-store?
- What role does food play in his/her life?
- What other brands does this person love outside of food products?
- What do they worry about, or, what stresses them out?
- What are they striving towards?
- What do they value most in life?
- What are their general attitudes and behaviors?
- What drives their food purchasing decisions?
- How involved are they with their food purchases?
As you can see, some of these questions are related to food and some are more general lifestyle. The intent is to paint a picture of the whole person.
If you’re thinking you don’t know the answers to these questions, don’t worry! You don’t have to answer all of them. This is just a list of ideas to help you create your persona.
Note: Sometimes you need to let a group of people go, and that can help you gain further clarity on who you DO want to attract. For example, someone who has strong taste, nutrition or personal beliefs about your category is never going to be your ideal audience.
It’s ok to let this person go, at least at first. You don’t want to spend too much energy trying to convince this person to come into the category and choose your brand; your time would be better spent speaking to the people who are already open to the concept.
- Pain points and unmet needs
What pain points or unmet needs do they have that you are solving? Hopefully in your brand strategy you’ve already defined how are you solving these pain points differently than others. But, if not, it’s a good thing to think through and actually write down.
Talking about pain points and unmet needs is important because when these ideal consumers find you, we want to make sure we are solving a problem for them. Understanding pain points informs everything from product development to copywriting.
If you aren’t sure what the pain points and unmet needs might be, look at online groups, blog posts and talk to people who fall within your ideal audience. You can gain a lot by both observation and direct questions!
Bringing it all to life:
Let’s take all these things and write a paragraph about this person. Write it as if you were introducing this person to another friend.
After you write the paragraph, come up with just a few words to describe this person’s key traits that you can keep top of mind.
A few examples might be:
- Fun-seeking foodie mom. She may be a mom with young kids who is balancing making time for her business, cooking healthy recipes, field trips to the zoo and activities for her older kids. She doesn’t want to compormise on healthy eating and adventuresome meals, but is short on time.
- Or maybe it’s Action Andrea, who has a job in an office but lives for the weekends and is never found without her outdoor gear. Her quest for fitness and adventure apply also to healthy eating, even when she’s on the go.
So, after we’ve written all this out and boiled our description down into just a few words, we want to make this person visible in our lives.
Keep your ideal consumer top of mind as you hone your brand and make decisions
- Print out a picture. You can search for free pictures of people through Google images using some of the most defining characteristics you identified above.
- Give him/her a first name and put the picture around your office to keep that consumer in focus at all time.
- If you work with a team, introduce this person and concept of personas to your team and post a picture in all departments. This reminds people that, ultimately, the consumer is the one paying our paychecks.
- Go out and meet this person! After you make initial assumptions, it’s time to validate and revalidate these assumptions by continuing to talk with people using your products. This is invaluable insight. These people can become your sounding board or consumer panel who you can bounce ideas off when you are thinking of new things and changes.
When to use your persona to help make decisions:
By now, you should be able to see all the places having a clearly defined consumer audience will be useful.
- Visual identity of the logo and brand color palette
- Packaging – both structural and label design
- New product development
- Product formulations
- Customer service
- Website and social media messaging
- Recipe and usage ideas
- Investor pitch decks
- Buyer presentations
…and the list goes on. You can always ask yourself what “Active Andrea” would say.
The ultimate test: Would this person know if they are your ideal customer if they looked at everything you just listed?
In a perfect world, we want your ideal audience to say, “Wow! Have they been watching me? How did they know that?! This is just what I need. Finally!”
I would love to see your persona profiles in the Facebook group or hear your questions. So, come on over and share what you’ve been working on! Or, if you’re stuck and don’t want to share publically, feel free to send me a message at katie@realfoodbrands.com.
Now let’s go shake up shopping carts!
Katie has 15+ years of experience in brand management and marketing across a range of popular brands from Fortune 500 consumer package goods companies to local startups. She has degrees in Marketing & Management from the University of Wisconsin – Madison School of Business and now, as an independent consultant, she is dedicated to helping local and natural food brands become category leaders in both philosophy and growth.
