Who's your target audience? What's your market?

These are the most common questions that marketers are asked, and for good reason. Your target audience lets you get to know your potential customers and create highly focused marketing campaigns that connect with them.

But, it goes beyond that. To reach your target audience, you need to get inside their heads.

Digging into who your customers are and what they are thinking about day-to-day will be the key to understanding what they are looking for in a product and what type of communication will speak to them.

In addition to considering these big questions, you'll want to ground your buyer personas by building a complete picture. Give them names, family statuses, hobbies, jobs, and socio-economic statuses. Map out their concerns with potential products, their motivations, preferences, pain points, and brand affiliations.

Taking the time to create accurate buyer personas based on well-researched metrics based on existing customers and or prospective customers will give you and your team the knowledge you need to focus your marketing efforts and marketing analysis tools so they meet your customer in the right place with the right marketing messages.