{"id":4765,"date":"2020-07-29T17:12:11","date_gmt":"2020-07-30T00:12:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sparktoro.com\/blog\/?p=4765"},"modified":"2024-04-04T23:25:31","modified_gmt":"2024-04-05T06:25:31","slug":"how-to-find-those-hard-to-reach-audiences-in-sparktoro-fast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sparktoro.com\/blog\/how-to-find-those-hard-to-reach-audiences-in-sparktoro-fast\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Find Those Hard-to-Reach Audiences in SparkToro… Fast"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Updated: April 5th, 2024<\/em><\/strong> (for SparkToro V2)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Every day, I help folks in fascinating, unique niches uncover key information about the audiences for their marketing efforts. It’s a fun problem! For a few minutes, I get to feel like a digital Sherlock Holmes, digging into their products and services, trying to understand their customers, and then figuring out how to target them in SparkToro.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But, one Rand can only do so much. So, let me show you how, in 10 minutes or less, you can replicate these processes and nail down your target audience inside the tool. And yes, you can do this for free<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Today, I got a request to help a marketer find an audience of food & beverage company executives <\/strong>and researchers\/product development team members<\/strong>, and the detective process was a great combination of challenging, but rewarding. I’ll use that as my example in this post.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Step 1: Determine Your Audience’s Basic Attributes<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I almost always begin with three questions about the group I want to understand:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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  1. What words and\/or phrases are these people likely to use in their online profiles and bios?<\/strong>
    Job titles are great, but often too limiting or not specific enough. If I want to find food and beverage executives, “food” and “ceo” might work, but it’s going to exclude far too many job titles and roles. Plus, many CEOs in the food and beverage field might not specify in their bio\/title\/profile online that they’re in the food world. Many just use their company name. So I need to go deeper!
    _<\/span><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. What are unique words and phrases they likely search for in Google (that few other searchers would type in)?<\/strong>
    If you already know the audience you’re targeting pretty well, and are aware of unique search keywords popular with them, this can work wonders. But, if you’re not yet very familiar with their Google querying it’s harder, and that’s when I turn to #3…
    _<\/span><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  3. What’s a source of influence\u2014a publication or a website\u2014this audience already visits?<\/strong>
    When the two above don’t get me where I’m going, or when I don’t yet know an audience well enough to have great answers to #1 and #2, this method almost always works.
    _<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    I start with a Google search:<\/p>\n\n\n

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    Sometimes, I’ll use Facebook Search, Twitter Search, Instagram Explore, or LinkedIn to search as well, but I find Google to be most reliable for uncovering publications that target a given group. In this case, Forbes is too broad, but FoodProcessing.com looks like exactly what I’m seeking.<\/p>\n\n\n

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    This publication is gold for three reasons: 1) it speaks to exactly the kind of audience we want to reach; 2) it has a significant presence on multiple social networks; 3) it’s specific to our target audience, rather than a broad publication that appeals to a wider group. It’s a perfect starting point to better understand the food & beverage industry insiders we want to analyze. Let’s plug it into SparkToro and validate that we’ve got the right group(s).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Step 2: Analyze The Publication’s Audience<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    I’ll use the search My audience visits the website: FoodProcessing.com.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n

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    This is everything I like to see from the initial results:<\/p>\n\n\n\n