Reaching the right audience: how to find the customers who will actually buy

One of the most common mistakes in small business marketing is trying to reach everyone. It feels safer: the more people who see your post, the more chances of a sale. In practice, a message written for everyone speaks to no one, and an ad shown to everyone wastes most of its budget.

The businesses that grow steadily know exactly who they serve. They can describe their best customer in a sentence, they know where those people spend time online, and every post sounds like it was written for them. Here's how to get there.

Step 1: Look at the customers you already have

Your best clues are in your sales records, chats and order forms. List your last 20 to 50 customers and note what you can:

• Who are they? A business or an individual? Roughly what age and life stage?
• Where are they? Your city, nearby provinces, nationwide, overseas Filipinos?
• What did they buy, and how much did they spend?
• How did they find you? Referral, Facebook, Google, TikTok, walk-in?
• Which ones came back, and which ones were a pleasure to serve?

Patterns appear quickly. You might find that most of your repeat buyers are working moms ordering for family gatherings, or small offices ordering in bulk, or event planners who need things fast.

Step 2: Write a one-paragraph customer profile

Turn the pattern into a short description of your ideal customer. Give them a name if it helps. For example:

Office Manager Grace runs admin for a 30-person company in Pasig. She orders snacks and giveaways for meetings and holiday events. She needs reliable delivery, an official receipt, and suppliers who reply quickly on Viber. Price matters, but a late delivery matters more.

Notice what this includes: the problem she has, what she cares about, and what makes her choose a supplier. That's what your marketing needs to speak to. Most businesses have two or three profiles like this. Start with the one that brings in the most money.

Step 3: Find out where they spend time

Different customers live in different places online. Instead of guessing, check:

• Ask them. Add "How did you hear about us?" to your order form, and ask regulars which apps they use most.
• Look at your numbers. Your Facebook, Instagram and TikTok insights show the age, gender and location of the people who follow and engage with you. Google Analytics shows where website visitors come from.
• Search like them. Type the questions your customer would ask into Google, TikTok and Facebook groups. See which pages, creators and communities come up.
• Look at Facebook groups and community pages. Local buy-and-sell groups, parent groups, hobby groups and industry groups are often where buying conversations happen.

A business selling to Office Manager Grace may find LinkedIn, Google search and Viber matter more than TikTok. A business selling to college students may find the opposite.

Step 4: Speak to one person at a time

Once you know who you're talking to, your content gets easier and sharper:

• Use their words. Copy phrases from real customer messages. If they say "pang-giveaway" or "for our team building", so should you.
• Answer their real worries. For Grace that's "Will it arrive on time?" and "Can I get an OR?", not "premium quality ingredients".
• Show people like them. Photos and stories of similar customers tell your audience "this is for you".
• Say who it's not for. "Minimum of 20 pieces" or "Metro Manila only" filters out people who would never buy and saves you time replying.

Step 5: Reach more people like your best customers

• Ask for referrals. Happy customers usually know others like them. A simple "Know someone who'd like this? Here's ₱100 off for both of you" works well.
• Partner with businesses that share your audience but don't compete with you. A cake shop and an event stylist, or a print shop and a corporate giveaway supplier.
• Join the communities where your customers ask for recommendations, and be genuinely helpful there, not just promotional.
• Use ads only when you know who to target. Paid ads work much better once you have a clear profile. Next week we'll cover when paid ads make sense.

Step 6: Check you're reaching the right people

Followers and likes don't tell you if you're reaching the right audience. Enquiries and sales do. Tag the links in your bio, posts and messages with our free Campaign Link Kit, so you can see which channel brings people who actually order. Our guide to UTM links explains how it works.

The bottom line

You don't need a bigger audience. You need the right one. Study the customers you already have, write down who your best customer is, and shape every post, offer and ad around them. Once you build a list of these people, our guide to consent-first marketing shows how to keep in touch with them directly.