Tip #37: Find Your Target Audience

You’re at a party and someone says “What kind of books do you write?” If your answer begins with “Well, it’s kind of hard to explain…” then you haven’t targeted your audience properly. Targeting your audience is a big part of marketing. That target audience should be the first group of people you aim your marketing efforts to. If you don’t know who you’re aiming for, you might as well just throw your marketing dollars into the wind and watch them float away. Here is an example of how I plan to use my target audience to market. My book The Queen Bee of Bridgeton is all about dance. So I plan on sending free copies to all the local dance studies and on advertising in their spring dance programs.

To figure out who your target audience is and how to reach them, answer a few questions:

Who would enjoy reading my book?

Of those who would enjoy my book, who is most likely to buy it?

Of those who would buy my book, how do they hear about new books to purchase?

To answer that last question, why not interview some people you know about their book buying habits. That may give you some insight as to where to focus your marketing.