Your personal brand and racing career would be little to nothing without your fans and followers. Sure you compete and race, but if people don’t know who you are or if they don’t recognize you, then you have little value to sponsorships. Your target audience or target market is the group of people in your orbit online and at the races, and they are the people most likely to not only watch you race but also purchase your merchandise. They’re your people, and it’s time you got to know them. Really know them!

Knowing real facts about your target market is what will help you create content that they find totally irresistible and keep them locked into your social media pages. As your audience grows in size, your knowledge of them will keep them around and convince sponsors of your viability as an investment.

Learning about your target audience doesn’t have to be complicated. It just takes some curiosity and time. It’s all about listening and asking “why”. Here are my top six tools and techniques to uncover the secrets of your target audience:

What do you already know about your target audience?

Listen to the people that are most engaged with your content! Choose 3-5 of your most engaged fans and poke around their social profiles. What other people or teams are they following? What kinds of content do they share about their own lives? Do they post about certain brands and products they like to use? Even a quick, curious exploration of your current engaged followers can reveal major insights.

Create a survey for your target audience

Go deeper with your current people by asking the specific questions you want answers to (that will benefit your team partners!). If you’re trying to level up your sponsorships and get more deals with more aligned brands, you’ll want to know some hard facts about your target audience’s product preferences and lifestyle and demographics. Creating a simple survey to send out via your email newsletter or on social media could give you the deeper, more specific insights you’re looking for. Try Google Forms or TypeForm for a free and easy form maker.

Explore your analytics (social, web)

When you share online, all that good engagement information gets recorded for you. Explore your Instagram insights and your website analytics to see some super helpful details about your target audience. You’ll learn their age and gender details, where they live, and what time they’re online so you know the prime times to post. 

Go down their rabbit hole

Pretend to be one of your target audience members on the internet for a few minutes. Based on what you know about them, who else do they follow on Instagram? What products to they click on? What would they Google? Follow their trail of engagement to see how the algorithms shape their experience. You might learn a lot about how to meet your target audience in different places on the internet than you originally thought.

Use search tools and social listening

There are lots of tools to help you expand your knowledge of your target audience. Google Trends is one where you can see related search terms as well as what’s trending for specific demographics (and vice versa). Use this to learn how to promote your sponsors in different ways. There are plenty of other kinds of social listening tools for you to explore as well.

The more you start using your insights, surveys, and search tools to guide your content creation, the more you’ll see your target market narrow in scope and also expand in size. Part 2 of my social media video training program for racers called Driven by Social walks you through how to make your unique brand irresistible to your target market and how to make a content strategy so you never run out of ideas to post. CLICK HERE to learn more about the e-course that has helped over 200 racers!

Last but not least, your competition

Finally, if you want to know more about your ideal, target audience, you should check out your competitors. Even your most loyal fans are likely keeping up with your competition, too. See what kinds of content they’re posting, the kinds of sponsors they’re working with, and how their fans engage with them. 

Understanding your audience is so important to your racing career, and it doesn’t have to be complicated! Create audience-focused content with ease and see your followers and fans double in no time. Check out Driven By Social for motorsports HERE!