How to Reach Your Target Audience

You might be looking at advertising on social media wondering:

How do I know I’m getting in front of the right people online? If I run ads, how will I know if people who want my products get to see it?

With farming magazines and billboards, you can speak directly to people who are interested in your products or are in your service area. But, unless you ask a customer where they heard of you every time (and if they remember), it’s hard to track exactly how many people saw those ads and then acted on them, converting into leads. There’s no exact measurement of success with traditional advertising.

Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and more give you the opportunity to speak to, or target, your ideal customer by interest, location, and more. Then, you get the added benefit of seeing real-time data like how many people saw your ad, how many interacted with it (like commenting, viewing photos, or watching a video), and how many clicked through to reach your website/listing.

It may seem creepy, but Facebook has given small businesses the tools to engage with their audience at a whole new level. We’ve done this with one of our customers, and now they’re identifying new leads on social media they wouldn’t have otherwise reached or know if they converted into a lead.

Here’s how you can get started.

Creating Audiences in Facebook

In Facebook’s business manager, you can create Audiences made up of the people you want to target. From there, you can then run ads to show to these specific audiences. But, who is the right audience? The first place to check is your current customer base. From there, you can target people who are likely to be interested in your business because they’re similar to your existing customers. Facebook calls these “Lookalike Audiences”.

Pull your Lookalike Audiences from lead or email lists, your website visitors, or your social media audience (people who already like & interact with your page). Facebook will identify common denominators in these groupings and create an audience based on the people who already support you and your business.

Outside of these audiences, Facebook has strong targeting capabilities, so you can place ads in front of people based on things they’ve shared or viewed on the platform. Here are a few examples:

Screenshot of an example Facebook audience

Interests

• Agriculture
• Sustainable agriculture
• Farmers Weekly
• National FFA Organization
• Farmer
• Tractor
• The Progressive Farmer

Brands they follow

• Kubota
• Deutz-Fahr
• Massey Ferguson
• John Deere

Job titles

• Organic Farmer
• Farmer
• Farm Supervisor
• Agriculture Worker

Demographics
If you choose to target demographics, be sure you’re choosing descriptors that best represent your customer base. You may wish to consider:

• Age
• Gender
• Marital Status
• Education level
• Employment status

Screenshot of a Facebook ad

Run Effective Ads

Once you’ve created all of your audiences, you’re able to run ads specifically for them. Unlike print media, you’re able to track how many people see your ads, click on them, and then convert to a lead. For example: speak to people interested in sustainable agriculture with an ad about what tools can help them best tend a garden and feed their own family.

If this sounds like a priority for your business, but you don’t have the time, our team of professionals can help. Our team has written, designed, created, planned, and executed quality marketing campaigns for years. It’s what we love doing, and seeing your success makes our work even better.