How to Define Target Audience and Make an App For Those Who Need It?

Updated 17 Oct 2022

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It's not difficult to sell fallen leaves if you know people who need them, right? Sometimes a thing seems to be absolutely unnecessary but at the moment a person or a group of people decided that they need it, the prices will shot up. Developing your own mobile application, first of all, you have to target the peopl who you are going to sell your product to. Below youll find complete instructions with the steps to target the audience for a mobile app, benefits and issues, that the target market analysis solves.  

Why is it important to know your audience?

The simplest explanation of what is a target market analysis and why you need to spend time and read Analytics and Statistics instead of coding is to understand who will use your application and why. But thats not all. There is a much deeper need to make a detailed investigation on the topic. The research includes several basic steps which we will scrutinize later. Now lets take a look at the benefits that the targeting audience analysis gives.

Audience target benefits

Audience analysis benefits

Helps define the functionality set

When you already have chosen the group of people that theoretically will want to pay for your mobile app, you can make a development plan, which includes the list of features of your future application. And thats not all. You can pick the most appropriate design around the needs of type of target audience. For example, if you develop a mobile application, lets say a messenger, and a target niche you want to occupy is mostly teenagers, then the design should include lots of funny stickers, emojis, animation and effects. The same with functionality. The application needs to include the ability to send photos, videos and voice messages. Otherwise, they wont like it and wont use it. On the other hand, if your messenger serves the medical sphere, security plays a vital role. So, if you want doctors to use your app, you need to provide the highest level of data protection, like we did in our app Doctoring.

We share our experience. See how we developed a doctoring application

Helps evaluate the idea

The next advantage lets you earn as much as possible. With the clear vision of who will use your product and after you have defined the main functionality set, along with the design, you can opt for the best monetization strategy for your product. There are lots of options and when you understand the needs and preferences of your target audience, you can easily pick the one, that will bring you the most money and wont annoy users. For instance, if you create an app for young mothers, the ads about baby products wont irritate customers and will interest them.

Helps build marketing strategy

To promote your product and attract all possible users, you need to create a well-considered app marketing strategy. Understanding of who is your target audience, how old he or she is, where they live, what their income is, you can see what adjustments are needed to be done to launch a perfect software solution for your customer. Providing that your product is a cooking app, how wonderful would it be if some cooking journal or Internet portal announced the launch of your app?

There are still lots of options to promote your app even if you are budget limited. Read how to promote your app for free in our article

Simplifies the development process

Among all the advantages of target marketing audience, this one is probably the most important, as it gives you an understanding of should you develop a product at all! It can turn out that a particular software solution is not required for a specific audience. For instance, you want to create an iOS application for your country. However, after small target audience research, you see that the majority of people in your area use Android platform. That means, that you have only a few potential users who will download your mobile app. So, maybe it would be best to reconsider choosing Android platform or starting the project in an area where customers prefer iOS.

We felt these benefits after we identified the potential users for our own projects. These weighty arguments prove the importance of the research. To find marketing target audience for your project, follow our simple guide.

How to find target audience?

There are only a few steps which you need to do to target your potential users precisely. They don't require large investments. However, you need to be patient and diligent.

how to target audience

Step-by-step guide to define target audience

First - ask people. Surveys have always been the simplest analytics tool to understand what people want and what they need. What you can do is to list the possible features and by simply asking potential users if they really would like to have an app with one feature or another, you can combine the preferred functionality into a project of everyones dreams. The other possible way is to ask your elected target audience what app (for instance for travelling) they like and take it as a model. Of course, the idea to interrogate people on the streets doesnt seem to be modern. Now people simply don't have time for this. It would be much easier to find out their preferences in a more up-to-date way.

Second - social media research. Today, it's much easier to find people to talk to here than on the street and your chances of getting a reply are much higher. What you have to do is create a few groups in each social network, each group (or a page) should target a particular social class (kids, schoolers, teenagers, students, businessmen, housewives, and so on). In each group, the content should vary according to the chosen social group. Set up the pages and see where the most number of users are. Which group is the most excited with the concept of your project and which looks forward getting it? This information will help define the category of people you are going to target and the changes you need to do (make the design more serious or vice versa, add more funny schticks for kids).

Third - advertisement site. Set up a landing page for your app and do the same as with social media. Create a few sections for each category of people. For example, if you're developing an educational app, create a page for students, teachers and schools. Add a  subscribe button in each category and analyse where people leave their emails the most. This is your target auditory. Focus on it and improve your product.

Looking for new opportunities for your business. Discover how a landing page development can help you with your app promotion!

Fourth - use market research tools. Developing on your own, you risk being isolated from the other people and modern tendencies in the world. While youre working on a revolutionized idea that will shake the world, someone has already launched it. So don't lose the chance to get acquainted with modern trends that will turn your idea into a project. Market Research tools are not exactly the instruments to identify your target audience segment. Yet, they tell what is popular now and what the latest trends are, along with the Statistics and Analytical data.

One of the best tools is Statista. It's a nice portal to see how many apps that are similar to yours are on the market. For example, here is a chart that shows the number of healthcare apps worldwide in 2013.

Market research tool

Statista - market research tool

Subreddits is a tool which helps you get feedback about your product before it's development. Here you can describe your idea and read what people think of it. You can get tonnes of unbiased comments. Nevertheless, you risk having the idea stolen. So if you came up with an innovative concept, keep it quiet.

Google trends allow you to see what people search for on the Internet. And it is priceless information when you're looking for inspiration for a new app. See what people really need and create a highly sought after product for everyone.

Don't miss a chance to discover the best analytical tools to maximize revenue from your software product, subscribe to our blog!

Fifth - competitor analysis. The step is really crucial. This way you can not only see what is already on the market but also discover the strengths and weaknesses of your app.

There are a few ways to detect similar products. The easiest one is to search in the App Stores. Although, this way isnt the most effective. The other option is to use special services that work more precisely. For instance, App Annie is a service, that offers a full spectrum of Analytical services and even more. The platform performs forecasting and data analysis, strategy planning, improves users involvement and helps choose the best monetization strategy.

After a competitor monitoring has been completed, start your own target audience analysis. At first check the rate of your competitors, then take some time to install at least some of them. Test the apps. Compare what features the apps have, what functionality you would like to add, if you like the design, if an app works fast, if it's easy to use it and what platforms the app covers. Read the comments about the app, because they can give you some ideas. Now think about what the assets and faults of the apps are and how your application is better. The main idea here is to learn from someone else's mistakes, not from yours.

Sixth - create an MVP prototype. It is the final step that will help you define the target audience and the most effective one too. How to define your target audience with a prototype? You create a prototype that includes only basic features from the overall project. Ask the users to leave comments and rate your app. If there is more negative feedback than positive it means that you chose the wrong audience. Think about who else may need the features you offer. Maybe users just don't like the design. These can be a survey in a prototype as well. Ask users how old they are, what their gender and occupation is. Analyse who left positive feedback, what these people have in common, what exactly they like. All this data is helpful, and you'll still have time to reconsider and make changes in the app.

If you need more information on what is an MVP and how to use it, watch our video to clarify all controversial point

You can use all these tips, or you can use only some of them. Yet, the audience targeting is extremely important as it solver a long list of problems, that occur if you havent done your homework.

Why is audience analysis important?

We know how hard it is to start a project. And we understand that it's even more difficult when you fail after such a long journey. Thats why we always claim that the preparation stage is the most important one. And if you have done everything right and defined the audience for your app correctly, you can be sure that you wont face the following issues.

wht it is important to know your audience

Advantages of target marketing

  • You have no users. The rate is low and the comments are all negative. If you found people who need the app, it's easy to sell it. The point is to target customers who require your app, as it solves some of their issues, or may bring them joy.
  • The app is too difficult to use. Sometimes even tutorial wont help. It happens when you created an app for adults and sell it to kids. Think once more about who your target is.
  • Overbudgeting. If the preparation stage is well-considered and you understand who will use your app, you can modify the project, leaving only the most required features in order to minimize the expenditures.

Now, in the era when developers arent considered as gods anymore, creating a nice-looking neat app isn't enough to become successful. You have to study Marketing, Analytics, SEO principles, Statistics and much more. You need to know the market, trends and technologies to create something really worthwhile. So don't waste a minute, start working on it right now. Develop an app that will change this world and if you need any help with it contact us.

If you want to develop a food ordering and delivery website then you definitely need to subscribe to our blog because it's going to be our next topic to discuss. Don't miss it!

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About author

Evgeniy Altynpara is a CTO and member of the Forbes Councils’ community of tech professionals. He is an expert in software development and technological entrepreneurship and has 10+years of experience in digital transformation consulting in Healthcare, FinTech, Supply Chain and Logistics

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