How to Capture Your Target Audience (And Keep Them)
Posted on Aug 12, 2009 in Articles
As simple as it may seem, building a web site that will survive the test of time is more than just slapping a few pretty icons and images on some HTML and CSS.
While content counts, it can’t even be considered unless it’s shown to the right people.
For everything we do, there is a desired audience, or in some cases, (such as my shower singing sessions) a desired lack of audience.
What’s most important is establishing who we want to see what we have to offer, and we have to make sure they like it.
Grabbing people’s attention is only half the game. Here is how to complete the package and keep those loyal visitors we so desire.
Establish Your Target Audience
First and foremost, choose who you think that you are targeting. Make a chart or list and progress from broader audiences into the specific demographics you’re aiming for.
If you absolutely must target teenagers, then label them a 1. If there’s a demographic you know you want to include, such as parents, categorize them as a 2. If you aren’t sure whether you need to include younger kids but you might, categorize them as a 3. Anything below that, leave out for now.
For an amusement park, the primary concern is financial, so look at who will provide the most financial gain.
Families come in larger numbers and buy more food, drink, and souvenirs on average. So for an amusement park, our primary demographic is families.
It’s rarely as simple as a single audience, so make sure we find everyone we want to speak to.
Nintendo wouldn’t be as successful with the Wii if it advertised to the teenagers, because that’s not their whole audience.
For the Nintendo Wii’s advertising platform, we see that the web site, as well as just about everything else that deals with the Wii, involves people of all ages.
Nintendo makes sure that everyone knows that, as we can see in the ad below, every single image in the ad features the family. There are parents and kids of different ages. Not to mention the fact that the ad states “It’s the perfect way to bring all the ages together.”
Identify with Your Audience
If the audience you’ve selected is one that you can’t identify with, revise your selection to a new demographic.
To identify well, you have to be able to see yourself as an audience member.
If you would find your own site informative, intriguing, or useful, then you’re on the right track, because you have a genuine interest in your material.
Anytime you’re having trouble thinking of any topics or are getting bored of writing about your subject, it’s not a bad subject. It just means you don’t identify with it.
When you can really identify yourself with your audience, it’s much easier to figure out what they want.
That Video Game Blog fits well with the audience because they provide content and advice from a gamer’s perspective.
Otherwise, someone who tries to provide products, services, or talk about anything for an audience they can’t identify with will give the wrong subject matter.
It turns into the classic case of someone advising other people on a topic they really know nothing about, or selling a product that has nothing to do with a consumer’s needs.
Find What Your Audience Wants
If you’ve ever been in this situation, you know how much of a turn-off it is when you go to a site and the information you get is both not what you were expecting to see and not what you want. You have to put yourself out of your shoes, and think like your viewers.
In at least one of the Brink’s Home Security commercials, almost every actor shown is male and only the actors that actually are shown in the foreground or speak to the camera are male.
This is because most people naturally feel that men are more capable of protecting them.
And when we look to some more of these home security commercials, when there’s a break-in, every single ad is of a woman or a girl at home alone when a robber (usually male) attempts to break in.
While it may be somewhat sexist in nature, it’s what the audience wants to see. People want their families to feel safe.
Brainstorming is the most effective method of figuring out what people want.
Look at the idea your web site or business deals primarily with. Now take note of everything that comes to mind when you think of that idea.
Now you have topics for content that visitors will be interested in. When you come to a site like WebDesignerDepot, you’d expect something about Web Design, the Web, or at least Design.
Defining Your Niche
You need to be able to pick a unique niche, or role, that you can fill, and you need to make sure that when someone thinks of this specific niche, they think of you.
It’s important to keep in mind the scale of your niche. Go too broad and you aren’t specific to anybody, which puts you below the others, who will divide up the niche you gave yourself, which includes all of those.
If we have a site that labels itself Web Design and sites labeled HTML/CSS Design, Flash Design.
Unless the Web Design site is far superior to the two more specific sites, it’s naturally going to lose priority because people who want HTML and CSS will go to the corresponding site and people who want Flash will go to theirs. This leaves the supposed solve-all site empty.
For example, if my most important audience is kids and my most important topics revolve around board games, then I would naturally make my niche Kids’ Board Games.
The most important rule for building a niche is to find the right balance. The best way to do this is by using those numbers from earlier.
Try to make your niche broad enough to include topics that appeal clearly to all of your 1’s and 2’s, and as many 3’s as possible without being generalized.
A perfect example of a good niche is Deviant Art. When we consider the audience the site appeals to, we come up with… Artists. Big surprise, huh?
As artists, we like to show off, and we like to give criticism. So Deviant Art is based around a system where anyone can show off and give their opinions and share. Nothing more, nothing less.
Now that we have an idea of our niche, we can move on to designing and content.
Show the Audience they’re Special
When the audience knows that you’re specific to them (or at least feels that way), they naturally feel your site is more important for them.
Specific statements and pictures that the audience can say, “Hey that’s just like me!” about add value to a site to the visitors.
Even if the theme of a site doesn’t specifically apply only to a select audience, certain headlines or features can also provide the same result.
Since laptops are an important asset for college students, Dell makes sure to emphasize that they provide what the students need.
Seniors Real Estate Specialists maintains a site that is strict to their audience, seniors, and makes it clear that they are the only group.
Because they show that the senior citizens are the only ones important to them, visitors who are in the target audience know that they’re the center of the site.
Notice that the site is very clear with intent and helps the audience identify as well with the main picture.
Let People Know Where They Are
For almost any audience, it’s always important to confirm that your visitors are in the right place.
It’s best to keep your site intent obvious, but you can do this with a blunt statement or with a combination of titling and imaging.
Here we can see that the site’s intent is clearly explained and bold, as a center of attention.
This usually works well, but be careful not to focus too much on a statement or headlines, because they’re often common and can detract from your branding.
Images and site titles can also be used to make the site’s intent very clear.
Without ever having to explicitly say what they do, Board and Decks is clear to visitors because the title itself is self-explanatory.
Even more so, there’s an obvious representation of the businesses’ two components: boards and decks, in the header.
An easy-to-understand site makes sure that people who came to your site on purpose are in the right area.
Also, it can also catch people who landed on your site and happened to be in that particular subject.
Simplicity can be Key
Do yourself a favor and save the time by not overdesigning your sites.
If you have any intention of appealing to any of the baby-boomers or even people born before the 1970’s, high contrast is a key to making content easily accessible, so bold colors and solid, straight lines are a good idea.
Central, bold headlines are important because they are what users look for as anchor points.
Many aspects are better left simple if you aim to appeal to any more elderly generations (senior homes, medicine, health care, exercise plans, etc.).
If you intend to market your site only to younger generations, or especially designers and graphic artists, then by all means work with styles and fancy lines and colors, but maintain clarity.
Sofa, a product development company, makes it hard not to work and navigate their site.
With such simple design, it’s easy to use and understand the site.
Keep the Consistency
Every element in your site should be consistent with the site’s audience’s needs. There’s no need to add red paint splatters to a site that’s otherwise minimalistic. Look for styles that blend well with one another.
This page has a nice enough design overall, but is inconsistent to its content.
It’s titled “Revenue Robot,” but none of the designs have anything to do with revenue or robots, and the content is about “art, money, and gaming.” What it amounts to is a lot of mental confusion.
When expanding outside your initial niche, you have to make sure you adjust your entire site to match.
This game fan site is excellently matched with the content and designs.
It’s easy to tell that it’s a gaming site, and everything about the site keeps to the theme of the game that it’s referring to.
Navigation
Don’t make it a nightmare for people to be able to find their way around your site. No matter who you’re appealing to, a central, obvious navigation is generally safe.
In a blog, don’t stick your navigation in your footer, because readers look for your navigation in the sidebar or in the header. Stylized or image-based navigation is great, as long as it’s easy to understand.
Some audiences don’t have flash, and that means if you base your entire site navigation or header in flash, you’ve already ruled out the entire audience.
If possible, always make navigation interactive, because many people, especially children and older adults, benefit from the reaction their cursor causes.
While they are good for showing what’s selected, interactive navigation is often best as a rollover image, because complex changes and flash animations can be distracting or confusing.
Loodo uses a creative board-game themed navigation that flows perfectly with the rest of the site, but is intuitive as well. There is also adequate separation between each option so it’s easy to use.
Clearleft incorporates a simple navigation, but the designs are easily compatible, so the post-it notes work with the site’s content. Notice also that the site has a clear statement of intent.
Both sites have interactive navigation, and it helps to reinforce what the user is doing.
Match the Site to the Content
Presentation is important for all sites because users behave differently on them.
In a portfolio site, a visitor expects content to be handed to them, which is why many are just image galleries (often incorporating flash for style nowadays). Andrew Hobbs uses a unique gallery that arranges images on the selected picture.
In a news site, blog, or magazine, most people are more interested in hunting around for content they like on their own.
If you have a professional business site, don’t try to spice it up with grunge or abstract backgrounds. Professional means clean.
Put those fancy grunge and abstract images in a gaming site or anything oriented towards action and usually younger audiences.
Provide What They Need
Well-designed web sites answer people’s questions and give them what they want before they even have to ask.
Not only does this show that the site is well-versed in the subject matter, but it makes it easier for people to get what they need.
On the Broadview Home Security Web Site, it features a family, safe by their house.
As a security company, they make the families safe, which is what someone who visits Broadview’s web site wants to receive.
Moving to the Brink’s web site, there is a rather well-built male plastered right onto the front of the page.
It’s in your face, and it gives you the impression of strength when you go there. And that’s also what visitors to the Brink’s site want.
Check or Avoid Ads
Especially in blogs, advertisements can be a distraction to users, because they link away from your site and are sometimes flat-out annoying.
Any and all ads link to their sources, and if a user clicks that ad, they’re no longer on your site. Unless you’re linking to specific content, always try to avoid giving people a reason to leave your site.
Even more important, ads can often feature noises, pop-ups, or animations that make people want to leave, and immediately. Unless you specifically filter the advertisements and make sure that they are all unobtrusive, leave them out.
Google AdSense might seem like the… sensible way to go, but when place in the middle of content, can eliminate users’ trust for your links and information.
Like in Living Room, ads can be placed on sides so that they’re inconspicuous and flow with the content. This way they can be found without distracting from the real web site.
Inappropriate ads cut out large portions of audiences, because if there’s a bad ad people are forced to see every time they visit your site, they just won’t. When it doubt, leave it out.
Don’t Be Afraid to Trim Your Audience
A loyal user base is much more rewarding than one that will visit only once or a few times. The core audience keeps you in mind, and earns you referral business as well.
For blogs, loyal users spread the word through their blogs and tell their friends, as well as commenting and adding discussion to your posts.
If traffic starts to come once or twice and never again, it’s often a good idea to refine your niche to a more specific one. Once you earn back your core group, you can use that as a boost to expand back into a larger niche if you feel necessary.
The more specific your audience can be, the better it is. If you don’t need a particular topic, then eliminate it, because it alienates some of your users who feel that you’re catering to them.
What capturing your audience sums up to is making sure that everything is consistent with the rest of your themes and appeals to the specific niche that you want. Remember, creativity counts!
Feel like you know how to capture an audience perfectly or have some elements you think should be avoided? Leave a comment so we can share more!
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