If you’re starting a dropshipping store or already have one, do you already know who your ideal customers are? If not, it’s important for the success of your business to figure out how to find the right customers for your dropshipping store and to be as specific as possible when advertising and marketing to them.
Targeting your dropshipping audience is important because it lets you market to people who are interested in what you’re selling. If you skip this important step, you’ll end up marketing to everyone, which usually means you’ll get a low return on your investment (ROI) and waste money on marketing. Instead, you should always talk to a specific group of people so that you can get their attention and connect with them through your marketing.
You don’t know how to get people to visit your dropshipping store. This dropshipping targeting guide will show you how to find and target your dropshipping audience to increase your chances of making sales and growing your business.
Why is it so important for dropshipping to find an audience?
One thing that many new dropshipping business owners don’t do is the research they need to do to find the right customers for their store. This is because they think that if they advertise to everyone, the right people will buy from their store. This is the furthest thing from the truth.
To be successful with dropshipping, you need to do research so you can find a specific audience to sell to and market to them. When you know who to market to, it’s not only easier to come up with marketing ideas, but they also work better. This is because you no longer waste time, money, and energy marketing to people who will never buy from you.
It can be hard to connect with potential buyers when you’re talking to a large group of people instead of a specific group. But when you’re talking to a very specific group of people, you know more about them and how to get their attention. This gives you a chance to get to know them. People are more likely to buy from you if they think you understand them and what they need.
We’ll go into a little more detail about why it’s so important for your dropshipping store to find an audience below.
Useful for marketing
When you know who you want to market to, it’s a lot easier to reach them. This is because you don’t have to guess what they might want or need. You already know because you did research and know everything there is to know about them. You’ll also be able to better tailor your marketing messages to speak directly to them, which will make your marketing much more effective.
Influences product development
When you know who you’re selling to, you can pick or make products that are more likely to sell. This is why the people you want to buy your product should also be involved in making it. You’ll want to make sure that the products you’re dropshipping are ones that your target audience actually wants and will buy. If you don’t do this, you risk dropshipping products that no one wants, which is a huge waste of time and money.
But how can you use your audience to influence product development? Take the time to learn about your audience and listen to them. Find out all about their lives, including what they like, what they need, how hard things are for them, and more. When you know everything about your audience’s life, interests, and habits, it’s easier to figure out what kinds of products they need or will be interested in.
brings in more money
The end goal of any business is to make more money. One of the best ways to do this is to find your target audience and market to them. When you know who your ideal customers are, it’s a lot easier to market to them in a way that speaks to them and makes them want to buy your products. Your business makes the most money from these groups of people, so it makes sense to focus your marketing efforts on them.
Because you’re marketing to people who are most likely to buy from you, you’ll see a rise in conversions, which will lead to a rise in sales for your dropshipping business.
Different Types of Audience
Now that we’ve talked about why it’s important to find and market to a specific audience, let’s talk about the different kinds of people you can market to. Remember that marketing to everyone won’t work as well as marketing to a certain group of people. Knowing the different groups you can market to will help you come up with the best marketing strategies that you know have a better chance of catching their attention.
Demographics
Demographics are one of the most common ways to reach a certain group of people. This takes into account things like age, gender, income, location, job, and more. When you’re trying to figure out who your target audience is for a product you’re selling, it’s important to think about all of these things.
You can get and understand demographic data pretty easily from your analytics software or from the insights in your social media accounts. Most of the time, these platforms will tell you what kinds of people are interested in your brand and dropshipping store.
For example, you may find that most of the women between the ages of 25 and 40 who visit your website or social media pages are single and don’t have children. Even though this is still a pretty big group of people, it’s a good place to start. As you get more information, you can narrow it down even more.
Location
When figuring out who your target audience is, location is another important thing to think about. If you dropship physical goods, you’ll want to make sure you send them to places where people are likely to want to buy them. You also need to make sure that you talk about the languages spoken in those places.
You can get even more specific by noting whether your target audience tends to live in big cities or more rural areas, cold or hot climates, etc. All of these things will affect how you market to your target audience.
Likes and dislikes
The interests and hobbies of your audience are another way to reach them. People are passionate about the things they like, so if you can tap into that and market to them with their interests in mind, you’re more likely to reach them on an emotional level. Are people who like to read or people who like to go hiking more likely to buy your products? Again, these kinds of details can help you come up with more effective marketing because people with different interests, personalities, and opinions will respond to different marketing messages, content, and calls to action. It may take some trial and error to figure out what they’ll respond to, but if you know what they like, you’ll have a pretty good head start.
Purchase Intents
Think about what your audience wants to buy when you decide who your ideal target audience is. When your audience buys or looks to buy something from your dropshipping store, how do they feel?
Are they trying to find a certain thing to solve a problem? Do they just want to look around or are they not sure what they want? Do they need help picking out a gift for someone else?
How you market to your target audience will depend a lot on how likely they are to buy. You can also divide people who are likely to buy into groups based on:
- People who use your search box instead of looking through your catalog
- Page length for a product or category
- Customers who leave their shopping carts
- Those who watch a video ad for a certain amount of time
When marketing to your target audience, you want to make sure you speak their language and find them where they are. These are just some of the ways you can divide your audience and reach the right people, but there are many more.
So, when it comes to marketing to your target audience, be creative and think outside the box. Finding and analyzing the data to find your ideal audience can take some time, but in the long run, it will be worth it because you’ll be able to connect better with the people who are most likely to buy from you.
How to Figure Out Who Your Audience Is
Now that we’ve talked about some things to think about when deciding who your target audience is, are you ready to find the right people to buy from your dropshipping store? It does take some work at the beginning, but we’ve made it a lot easier by giving you this step-by-step dropshipping targeting guide. It will show you how to find customers for your dropshipping stores.
Define marketing goals
Before you can start to target people, you need to know what the marketing goals of your dropshipping store are. You want more sales, but that’s not the only thing you need to think about. Your business should also work on many other goals that will lead to more sales in the long run.
For example, Do you want to make more people aware of your brand? Focus on getting people to visit your store. Want more people to sign up for your emails? Once you know your goals, you can start making a plan for how to reach them. Your marketing should be based on the goals you set, so it’s important to know where to put your attention.
Find out about your audience.
Now that you know what you want to accomplish with your dropshipping store, it’s time to learn more about the people who might buy from you. Here, the goal is to make a buyer persona so that you can reach the right people. There are many ways to do this, but we suggest starting with your current customers.
If you already have customers, look at them and try to find things they have in common. Putting these pieces of information together can help you figure out who your target audience is and what they want.
There are other ways to find out about your audience, such as:
- History of purchases
- Talks with customers
- Surveys of consumers
- Stats about a website
- Thoughts on social media
- Market research
Instead of using just one method or source of information, it’s better to look at several to see where they agree and where they disagree. This will help you check the data and get a better idea of who you want to reach.
Find out what’s important
Once you’ve done your research, you can use it to figure out what information is most important for building your buyer persona. These personas will be a representation of your target audience and will help you figure out who you’re marketing to. To build the right persona for your dropshipping business, you can use a mix of general information, like age, and more specific information.
Here are some important facts you can use to describe your buyer personas:
- Location
- Age
- Gender
- Income
- Profession
- Hobbies/interests
- Values/beliefs
- Level of education
- Status of a Relationship
- What drives a buyer?
- Buyers have doubts
- Devices that are used often
- How they spend their time (on and off the Internet)
These are just a few examples, but the more you can find out, the better. Here, the goal is to ask questions and gather information that will help you figure out who your ideal customer is. This will help you target the people who are most likely to buy from your dropshipping store so that you can reach them better.
Start marketing to the people you want to reach.
Now that you have all the information you need and have made a buyer persona that will help you market to your target audience, it’s time to start marketing with the goal of reaching that specific group. To come up with a marketing plan, you should identify your customers’ pain points and figure out which of your products will solve their problems or make their lives better.
Also, knowing where your target audience spends their time and what kind of devices they use can help you figure out where to market to them. Do most of them use desktop computers or mobile devices? Do they use Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, or Tiktok more often? These kinds of questions will help you figure out where your customers are most likely to be and how to reach them.
Look at how things went.
In business, it’s important to keep an eye on how things are going and make changes as needed. This is the only way to know for sure if your marketing is working. Try out different methods, keep track of everything, and really look at how each one works before making any big changes.
Is the persona you made not as interesting as you hoped? It might be time to try a different platform or marketing method to reach them. Or maybe it’s time to look at that persona more closely and change it to better reflect the people who are most likely to buy from your dropshipping store.
In business, you’ll always have to look at the numbers and make changes based on what you find. But it’s important not to make these decisions or changes without any data to back them up.
Example of Targeting for Dropshipping
Even though we’ve shown you how to find your audience for a dropshipping store step by step, it might help to look at a real-life example.
Sugar Cosmetics
Sugar Cosmetics is a brand of beauty products aimed at women in the Indian market. Most cosmetics brands don’t have enough for these women, so Sugar Cosmetics wants to fill that gap.
Because India is hot and humid and has a monsoon season, it is hard for women who live there to find makeup that will last in those conditions. It is also hard to find darker shades that match the common skin tones in India.
Vineeta Singh, the founder of Sugar Cosmetics, was ready to solve these problems by making Indian women her target market and making sure that the company’s product development and marketing efforts were geared toward them.
The brand’s ideal customers are those who:
- Indian women between 20-27
- lives in cities and towns
- A lot of digital content is used.
- Based on trends around the world
- Wants things to be more Indian
All of the above things help Sugar Cosmetics describe their ideal buyer, which helps them market to their target audience more precisely. For example, knowing that their target audience watches a lot of digital content led the company to focus on reaching customers through social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram, where they spend a lot of time.
This is just one example of how a company narrows in on its target market and uses that information to not only market directly to the right buyer, but also to make and sell products that meet their needs and wants. When you have a dropshipping store, it’s important to remember that you have the same chance as everyone else to focus on a target market and serve them better than anyone else.
How to Reach Your Target Audience Most Effectively
Now that you know how important it is to target a specific audience for your dropshipping store and have researched and studied your target audience enough to create the ideal buyer persona, let’s look at some of the best ways to reach that audience.
Ads on Facebook
Facebook ads are one of the most popular and effective ways to reach the people you want to reach. Since you already know who your target audience is, you can use Facebook’s targeting features to limit who sees your ad by location, age, gender, interests, and more. This makes for very effective ads and makes sure you’re not wasting money on people who aren’t likely to visit your website or buy from your dropshipping store.
You can also make “lookalike audiences” on Facebook. These are groups of people who are similar to your current customers in many ways. Since Instagram is owned by Facebook, you can also set up ads for Instagram on the same platform.
Influencers
Influencers can be a huge help to businesses, especially if you know who your ideal customers are and can find an influencer who attracts them. This works especially well if you’re selling products in a niche market where people really care about what they buy. Dropshippers who sell eco-friendly or sustainable products, for example, could work with an influencer who promotes living in a green way.
When working with influencers, it’s important to do your research and make sure they have an engaged following on a platform where your target audience spends time and that their following matches your target audience. You should also be clear about what you want them to promote and what kind of content you want.
It can be hard to figure out how much to spend on influencers because what they charge can vary a lot. Most influencers will charge you per post, but some companies will also give the influencer an affiliate code or link that lets them get a cut of any sales. Your best bet is to reach out to influencers who meet your needs and work out a deal that works for both of you.
When you use hashtags on social media sites like Instagram or TikTok, your posts will be seen by the right people. You can reach more people on social media by finding out what hashtags your target audience is using and using those hashtags in your own posts, as long as they are relevant.
This can be hard to do if you don’t know much about social media or hashtags, but you can make a hashtag strategy or use hashtag discovery tools to find the right ones for your dropshipping store’s niche.
Programs for referrals or affiliates
What better way to draw in your ideal customers than to use them as marketing? Since your current customers are probably part of your target audience, they may also know other people who fit your buyer persona.
When you set up a referral or affiliate program for your dropshipping store, you give people who bring you new customers a reward. This can be a one-time coupon code or a free product when they refer a new customer. With an affiliate program, they may get a percentage of the sales made through their affiliate link.
Even though this will cut into your profits a little bit because you will either have to discount orders or pay customers who bring you new sales, it can be an effective sales strategy and can be built into your marketing budget.
Conclusion
There are many ways to get the people you want to shop at your dropshipping store. The most important thing is to know who your target audience is and what kind of messages or content they will respond to. As we explain in this dropshipping targeting guide, once you know who your ideal customer is, you can use a variety of marketing strategies to reach them. This way, you can spend your time marketing to people who are more likely to buy from you.
