Have an idea for an awesome shirt? Before you invest to bring the design to life, be sure you can answer this simple question: ”Who is the target audience?”

Getting to know who your customers are is a crucial step for a successful campaign. Even if you have not given it any thought, every shirt has an audience. Designing with your audience in mind also makes it easier create targeted Facebook Ads. Do you know what your customer looks like?

The majority of the sellers on GearLaunch have experienced a significant increase in sales when they targeted their marketing efforts to appeal to a specific audience. Audiences with niche interests and intersections performed better than those marketed to a general audience. If you don’t have your target audience well defined, your marketing is more like buck shot – it goes everywhere, and you just hope it hits something. Targeting a niche audience is like a sniper rifle that is sited in and on point. It is going to hit whatever you aim to shoot.

What’s considered an audience?

It is a lot easier to identify your target audience if you know what an audience is. An audience is a specific group of consumers that is marketed to by targeted advertising. This can mean a specific group of individuals that is targeted by hobbies, movies, books, music, and television shows. An example of a target audience may be women age 18 to 35 who run marathons and live in the Northeast. You can target several audiences, or you can broaden it a little. In the end though, you do need to identify your audience, and that starts with pinpointing your niche.

What exactly is a niche?

A niche is a focused portion of a market that is targetable for specific services or products – with a demand that has not been met. A business or entrepreneur may enter a niche market by offering a service or product that was formerly unavailable to a particular audience. Once you find your niche, you can focus your marketing strategy and distinguish your product or design features.

Niches are created; they do not exist until they are discovered. They are discovered by identifying the requirements, wants, and needs that are not being addressed — or that are not being addressed adequately — and delivering a product that meets those requirements, wants, and needs.

Identify and clarify your audience.

The best way to target a niche audience is to pick one or more reasons people buy shirts and combine them:

1. Passions: Hobbies, political or religious beliefs, favorite genre of movies, music, love for animals, etc….

2. Sense of belonging: Everyone wants to be a part of a larger community so they can feel accepted with people they can relate to: sports team fans, school organizations, local events, festivals, etc…

3. Standing out: Satire shirts or an awesome design that will turn heads! Where did they get that shirt from? I want one!

An example of a niche audience would be people who are ages 21-45, hot sauce connoisseurs, and love bacon.

If you’re still stuck, answer these questions to fine-tune your audience:

• Who are the people that make up your audience?
• What is their most pressing problem, issue, or desire?
• Where are they hanging out online; where do they get their information?
• What benefit or aspect of your product speaks to or solves their most pressing problem, issue, or desire?
• Who do they trust? What sets off their alarms?

Create designs your niche audience will love and you’ll be on your way to launching a successful campaign! If you have the resources, test different designs on niche Facebook pages or ads to see which one sells better. Want more information about building your niche audience? Learn how to find the perfect niche for your store!

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