What’s an Audience Profile?

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An audience profile describes the characteristics of those who consume a particular medium, such as a TV channel or magazine. Advertisers use this information to target their ads effectively, and media companies design content to appeal to a specific audience.

“Audience profile” is a term used to describe the characteristics of those who read, view or listen to a particular medium, such as a television channel or magazine. Such a profile typically contains economic information, such as approximate income, home ownership, car ownership, and purchasing patterns. It may also contain information about social habits and geographical location. An audience profile can be especially important for advertisers who want to display their advertisements where people likely to buy their products or services will see them. General social and economic information about audiences from various media sources can greatly assist advertisers in choosing the most effective placement for their advertisements.

An audience profile can be useful to advertisers for a variety of different reasons. Economic information about an audience allows advertisers to judge whether or not readers, viewers, or listeners have the financial resources or need for the products or services being offered. Knowledge of home or auto ownership, for example, provides insight into whether advertisers should sell home or auto products. An audience profile can also reveal that many readers, viewers, or listeners have different primary languages, and that simple-sentence advertisements may be better than particularly clever ones.

Some advertising companies have departments entirely dedicated to gathering information about their audiences, while others buy that information from third parties. Some of this information may be in the form of detailed audience profiles, but sometimes you just need demographic information, such as age, gender, and race. Audience profiles are central to many advertisers’ business plans, as it’s difficult to make informed decisions about where to advertise without knowing your audience relatively well. Without researching or purchasing that information, much of the advertising process would have to be guesswork.

In some cases, new media sources try to present an image and provide information or entertainment that appeals to a specific audience profile. Many media companies and sources, for example, try to build a certain type of audience based on the content they provide. The desired audience profile is, for example, particularly important when designing the website, especially when the site sells a product or service. Designing a website with a certain target audience in mind often results in a site that is easier to use and less intimidating than one designed haphazardly or with no particular plan for the audience.




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