Starting a business may be difficult, so fifty percent of them fail over the first two years. Any startup has various causes for failing most of them are related to One of the main obstacles to startup development is improper knowledge of target audience.
When I talk to startup owners and ask if they have established a buyer persona, the look on their face tells the full tale. When a co-founder of a business tells me he is ignorant of customer persona, I am not shocked.
How can you establish a full business without having a clear knowledge of who your target client is? Should the product you are presenting them not appeal to them, what then?
What should fuel your startup? Your target audience is what. Here are a few reasons why your company is suffering or will struggle or won’t be able to expand if you don’t know your audience inside out.
1. Not A Clue On Demand
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Does the market show demand for your good? Actually, people want to purchase what you are offering—or will be offering?
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The number one reason why you should understand your audience is to assess the demand and desire for your product.
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If there isn’t enough demand, your startup will inevitably collapse. Just because a few individuals who are close to you adore your product and are itching to utilize it doesn’t indicate it is something that everyone will buy for an infinite amount of time.
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Understanding your audience will help you anticipate the existing and future demand for your product. When gathering data from your audience, your focus should be on the future demand. Will they be interested in the same thing after 5 years or 10 years?
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Most startups don’t monitor or estimate future demand and that’s what hampers their growth the most. Especially, if your startup is tied to or work closely with other firms. Consider Buffer which is a social networking platform solution that’s in great demand nowadays. But its growth and its survival are connected to social networking platforms.
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If social media sites cease to exist in a two years, Buffer will go out of business.
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The point is, if your startup is closely tied or dependent on other firms, you have to do a lot of study in terms of future demand.
2. No Knowledge Of Whom You Compete
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Understanding your audience helps you determine your top rivals, their strengths, and limitations. Do existing competitors overlook anything that audience is still longing for?
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If so, what are the prospects of your startup’s success if you supply that ‘missing’ feature? What will be your product’s demand then?
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What if one of the competitor’s (or all of them) offer the same ‘missing’ functionality in a few years?
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If you know your audience and you have invested substantially in market research, surveys, and interviews, you'll be in a much better position to determine how your audience will respond to your business.
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When gathering data from the target audience, you need to be sure to evaluate your competition thoroughly. They will undoubtedly know this ‘shared target audience’ better than you since they constantly have action-based and behavioral data. This puts your rivals in a better position to grasp the audience.
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You should complete your homework seriously. Not understanding your competition or taking them lightly is a fatal mistake that might cost you a lot. That’s where understanding your audience will assist a lot.
Read Also: Key Factors Leading to Startup Failure
3. Misconception About Market Size
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What is the size of your target audience? How many individuals are interested (or will be interested) in your product?
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If you acquired adequate data for demand and competition, estimating an estimated present and future market size won’t be a difficulty.
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If you have discovered your rivals, studying a handful of them can provide the approximate market size. But don’t simply stop there.
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You should also compute the expected future market size. A consumer today won’t be a client tomorrow. And someone who is interested in your product now could not be interested in your product tomorrow. How your audience behavior has evolved in the past and how it is likely to change in the future can help you establish the real market size.
Conclusion
Understanding your audience is really tough and this is why most entrepreneurs don’t enjoy wasting their money on it. The rule is clear, the more you know your audience, the better.
It will be preferable if you undertake market research before to starting your firm as it will help you grow better at marketing. When you know what your audience is wanting, marketing and selling become easy.
On the other side, if you have no notion about your audience, starting could be easy but expanding your business will become a lifelong battle.
