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1. R E B E C C A C O U G H L I N
Critical Approaches

2. What is A Target Audience?
A target audience is a company's potential demographic
consumers who are most likely to buy/watch or show interest
in a product, which is why a business decided to aim its
marketing and advertising strategies at them.
They can be found by often segmenting them into age, gender
or income. Location is often key too, such as local customers
or how wealthy the area is.

3. Qualitative Research
Qualitative Research is used to create a hypotheses. This can help companies identify customer needs
as well as be able to get a clearer understanding of what they could use marketing wise to relate more
to their target audience. This research can also be used to generate more ideas or improvement of
products, lines or brands.
This type of research is primarily exploratory and it is
used as a way to understand reasons, opinions and
motivations of a target audience.
After finding this information, an in-depth study of a small focus group can be used to support a
hypotheses made from the range of behaviors the target audience showed earlier, such as their social
behavior.
The dynamic nature of this technique is appropriate to engage with more of the audience and could be
used to get even more depth and detail in the answers than what would be possible with just a survey
or questionnaire. Also, by focusing on one or a small group of people, they can be more open to expand
in their responses.
Although, this technique is more time consuming and it can only reach a slim number of people unlike
a survey which could reach hundreds of people. It is also not as easy to generalize because fewer people
are studied which can’t be used to generalize results. By having such a small number of people, it can
make it hard to fit their responses into data as their responses may be wildly different to each other.

4. Quantitative Research
This type of research includes researchers collecting numerical data. It involves measuring or
counting attributes to what the researcher is focusing, such as ‘how many’.
Quantitative is used to either support of contradicts an idea or hypothesis a researcher may have,
such as ‘my target audience is mostly male’, so they use this technique to find out if this statement
is true or false. We can use this research to see where responses are similar or if there are
differences between them.
There are a few ways to do this research, such as questionnaires
which is a series of questions sent to gather information. There
is also interviews but it would have to be more structured to
collect the right data.
The advantages of quantitative research is that it allows the researchers to make a broader study
with larger numbers of respondents which enhances the generalization of the results. As well as
this, using this technique, you can allow for a greater objectivity and accuracy of the results which
means the results found will have few variables and it will avoid personal bias as the technique can
be more distant than qualitative research.
However, the results are limited as they only collect numerical descriptions as well as the answers
not always showing how people really feel about a subject.

5. When Are They Used?
Qualitative Research is used to generate new ideas/developments and improvements
by listening to their target audience more to see what they want and what would attract
them more to the product. This type of research can also be used to understand the
strength and weaknesses of a that product. It can also be used to assess different
aspects of a company, such as the branding, the marketing, the company website and
the actual product being sold. However, qualitative research does not act as a process
to count, measure of offer statistical numbers to validate from.
Quantitative Research is used to see audience’s preferences and to test hypotheses. It’s
used as an assumption of the findings representing the population. It’s a practical and
quick way of gathering information, and the information can be collected widely from a
large amount of people in only a short period of time which can sometimes be really
inexpensive. It can be used to measure change and different people’s opinions to find a
majority. As well as comparing old research to new, which is good when creating an
upgrade of an already popular product.
However, it’s a lot less detailed than qualitative data. It can’t be used to understand
audiences emotions or feelings very well, and there is no way to tell if the respondent is
being truthful.

6. Demographic Information
This type of information involves finding the aspects of consumers the
business needs to aim at to sell their product as successfully as they can.
This is done by collecting information of:
Gender
Age
Ethnicity
Income
Qualifications
Marital Status
This type of information is important to a business as it gives a vague
background of the customers they are intending to target. It’s the businesses'
way of getting to know their market more. By doing this, they can understand
how to aim at them and how to communicate with them better.
Demographic information is the best way to collect statistical data.

7. Behavioural Information
This is the consumers decision process, what type of things influence their
purchases. Once a business knows this, it can be simpler to aim the right
campaigns at their target consumers.
This information can be monitored through examining consumer online
purchasing. This way they know about what their target consumers like, and
demand in products they like.
To get a better understanding of the consumers behavior, you can look at
their:
Hobbies
Past Purchases
Interests
After doing this research, businesses can base their marketing campaign more
around these people to get the best possible profit and interest from
consumers.

8. Why is A Target Audience Important?
Knowing your target audience as a company or business is very
important as they need to find out what their target audience’s
general age is, their gender, education level, interests and/or
income to really understand who they are aiming at. By finding
all this out, the company can create common or safe ground
between themselves and the audience to make them more
comfortable with a brand/product. This makes it easier to sell
this said brand or product to the audience which will gain the
company more profit. Also, by doing this, the company can also
use their current target audience to find out even more about
them, such as what they like about the product/brand and what
they don’t like.
By having a clear understanding of their target audience, they
can aim all their money and marketing at that section of
audience so they save money and prioritize resources better.

9.  Socia-economic status
 Psychographics
 Geodemographics
 Age
 Gender
 Mainstream and niche
What Categories Could Publishers Use To Define
A Target Audience?

10. Socio-Economic Status
Here, you need to use this type of research to know your target audience’s status
in terms of class, income and education. By knowing this, the higher the class of a
certain audience, then that means there can be a higher asking price as they have
the income and perhaps personality type to be able to spend more money on a
product.
Advantages of this is that the company will be able to know the price range and
quality of their product better when aiming it at their target audience. Such as
selling at a higher class means the price can be higher.
Disadvantages of this is that depending on the price, it can only be bought or
aimed at a specific audience. Therefore leaving a large section of audience out,
creating a potential loss of profit. Plius, the higher
the price, then perhaps that would lead to less
sales, unlike selling something at a lower price
which would attract more people and generate
more sales.

11. Psychographic Information
This type of research is used to understand consumer behavior,
their style of living and self concept.
This type of information can be used to gain a deeper
understanding of the consumers by understanding their:
Interests
Personality types
Thinking process
Financials
Hobbies
Lifestyle
This way, it’s easier for the business to connect with the
consumers through their marketing campaigns.

12. Age
By finding out the age of a target audience, it can make marketing to them a lot easier. Such as a
young audience are aimed in a completely different way to an older audience, like the font, colours
and information.
By having an average aim for the age, companies have a better understanding of the market they
are aiming at. It can help the company understand personality traits, hobbies, interests and
income, all with only knowing the age of the target audience.
The advantages to this is that a company can get a lot of general information from only knowing
one thing which helps them when it comes to aiming their resources at their target audience.
However, the disadvantage of this is that the age only gives the company general information that
might not help when marketing the product/brand.

13. Gender
Knowing the gender of your target audience is very important as it can
change the whole way a company or business markets their
product/brand. This is because the two genders can have very different
personality traits which can make it difficult to aim one thing at both. But
it’s not as easy as girls like pink, boys like blue, as there can be different
personalities that like un-stereotypical things.
The advantage to knowing the target audience’s
gender is that there are a lot of serotypes that go
with a gender which can make it a lot easier to outline ways to market a
product better.
Although, the disadvantages of it is that sometimes the stereotype is too
large and doesn’t actually appeal to anyone, it can even offend people due
the stereotype. Such as girls liking flowers and boys liking cars, when in
actual fact it can be the other way around.

14. Mainstream
The mainstream media, or as it’s also known, the mass
media, is what is known to a wide range of people, such as
X-Factor or the news. It is publicized on social media a lot
so a lot of people know about it.
The advantage of a mainstream audience is that there is a
clear understanding of what the audience likes as well as
what appeals to them.
The disadvantage of this though is that sometimes
mainstream interests change, such as fashion and it can be
hard to keep up with that mainstream to keep target
audiences happy.

15. Niche
A niche audience is a lot smaller and only aimed at
specific interests. This makes it easier to sell unique
products as that specific audience would be very likely
to buy it.
Advantage is that you don't have to aim at a big
audience.
Disadvantage is that it only reaches a small audience.