Who Is Your Target Audience

No, your target audience is not “people getting married”.

Your target audience, or your ideal client, is a particular subset of those who love to buy from you and to whom you love to sell to because you know you have made their life better.

You relieve a particular pain point in their life. You speak their language. You understand how they want to look on their wedding day, how they want to experience the dress buying experience, and what additional services will make their lives easier.

Now, there can be more than one ideal client for you. There may be multiple ideal clients. The point though, is not how many ideal clients you have but rather who each of them are. This is where you cannot have “anyone getting married” as your target audience because all different types of people are getting married. Some like more classic, elegant, traditional gowns while others prefer unique touches of lace or a more boho style. Some want you to be more formal in the customer experience journey touchpoints and others prefer you to be more casual. You need to know the differences so you can clearly speak to them.

If this is still confusing, email me for a free PDF workbook to help you think through all the psychographic and behavioral characteristics of your ideal client.

How Do They Use The ‘Gram?

In order to attract your target audience, you need to know where they are. Where do they hang out on Instagram? Do they watch stories? IG Reels? Scroll through their feed? Search up tags?

And then what content do they like to consume?

Think about how you use Instagram. You probably use it for a few things: posting on your account, research on designers or other bridal shops, maybe recipes, encouragement, inspiration, or fitness. There are countless combinations of what types of content a person can consume on IG. Your goal is to make sure you can appear and relate to what they already like and consume.

Do they watch cute animal posts? Dogs or cats? Are they into a particular type of fashion or social cause? What gets under their skin and really frustrates them? Do they take the tube or drive? Do they have to sit in traffic to get to work or work from home?

All these things relate to the first part of identifying who your target audience is but now you are going to authentically post about the same topics. Think of what you have in common with them and then you can craft a narrative that aligns with their thoughts and feelings.

Are you passionate about social justice? Equality? LGBTQIA+? Do you love dogs?

Now, think of the ways you can incorporate that type of content into your strategy for your posts, IG Reels, IG Lives, stories, etc. How does it relate to your 9-grid strategy? Or is it better for a story that will disappear in 24 hours?

Creating content is the most important way you can connect with millennials and Gen Z marriers. Creating content that makes them say, “Oooh, yes!” is your ticket to not only that person but more like them as the algorithm will take note and start to show your content to others who are similar.

Retaining Your Target Audience

Now that you’ve connected with them, you need to retain them. Sometimes this is harder than attracting them.

To retain an audience (or a person), you need to keep their attention and solve a problem. Retaining an audience may mean you are solving different problems to keep them around versus what you solved to attract them in the first place.

To do this, you want to think about their customer experience journey and the touch points you can contribute to for them. This goes beyond just your customer service in the shop or on the phone. This is about what other ways can you provide value and solutions to the problems they face as they are planning their wedding. The more value and solutions you provide, the more you retain your audience and build a community.

This might mean helping them find the right suppliers for their wedding. Perhaps you might have a mini showcase of suppliers for a fun day at your shop or maybe you participate in a wedding fair at a venue. You could participate in a styled shoot or do a fun day of shooting IG Reels with other suppliers and so introduce your audience to suppliers through your IG account.

Think of what they are struggling with and how you can help in ways that have seemingly nothing to do with your core business. Going far beyond your regular business operations to provide that extra touchpoint will allow them to not only have more interactions with you and your team but also solidify how indispensable you have been to their journey of getting married.

Now, this is the most important part, because when they know and love you so much that they want to gush about you every time they talk about their wedding (which we all know is quite a bit). That is one of the best forms of advertising: unsolicited gushing.

And then the cycle starts again with new clients.

Instagram is not going away, and it is where the marrying age of people are hanging out. 77.7% of its users are under 44 years old and spend approximately 52 minutes per day if not more on the platform.

Your next client is already there waiting to connect with a brand who will help them navigate through their bridal fashion buying experience. It can either be with you or someone else.

If you find yourself thinking, “This makes sense, but I’m still confused,” feel free to email me to schedule a free 15-minute consultation to help you get started on the right path: hello@thebridalmasterclass.com