Target groups

If you work as an artist or cultural entrepreneur, in 99% of cases you have an idealistic goal. You want to create something, tell a story, convey a message, inspire others, and perhaps even make the world a little bit better. The image of the artist sitting in his attic room creating art is very outdated. Most cultural entrepreneurs and artists have a tremendous drive to actively promote their work and thereby connect with an audience in whatever way they can. To do this as effectively as possible, it’s important to determine in advance who you’re targeting (your target audience(s)) and how you want to reach them. Based on your mission and vision, you’ll make decisions about the activities you’ll undertake and the target audience you want to reach. Therefore, always incorporate this into your communication plan and your action plan.

Getting to Know Your Audience

It’s very important that you know who your target audience is. It would be a real shame if you came up with something and then found out that the people who buy it or come to see it don’t like it at all. By knowing what kind of people use your services or come to see you, you can tailor your approach accordingly. Another important reason to get to know your audience has to do with communication. The more you know about your audience, the easier it is to reach them. After all, you’ll know which social media platforms they use, what language works best to engage them, and how to encourage them to take action. That action could be buying a ticket or a product, or telling others about your initiative or project. Always try to demonstrate this, because—especially when dealing with grants and funding—knowing and reaching your target audience is a crucial part of cultural entrepreneurship.

Why It's Important to Segment Target Audiences

That’s why it’s a good idea to identify your target audience. You may even be able to identify more than one. Sometimes you hear that people have come up with an initiative or project that’s suitable for everyone and every target audience. That means you’re not excluding anyone—which in turn means you’re aiming to reach more than 7 billion people. That’s impossible, and no one has ever managed to reach even all Dutch people with a single project or initiative. If only because you don’t have that much money to spend on communication. Make sure to define your target groups and divide them based on various characteristics that apply to a specific group of people. In other words, you’ll be breaking down the total number of people into different segments. This will allow you to determine who you do and don’t want to reach. By doing this, you can, on the one hand, create a much clearer communication plan and, on the other hand, raise funds much more easily from a potential sponsor or grant provider. They’ll be able to see much more clearly whether your target audience aligns with their objectives.

How to Segment Your Target Audiences

Segmenting target audiences means dividing the total market (i.e., all people) into smaller groups of people who appear to share similar characteristics. It’s like cutting a cake into slices. Each target audience thus has a profile that matches a set of characteristics, allowing you to reach these people in a more targeted way and address them appropriately with your initiative or project. There are countless ways to make this subdivision. You can find plenty of examples online of how others have done this. You can take this as far as you want, and the rule is that the more you know about people, the greater the chance of a successful approach. Entire books have been written on this topic, and studies have been conducted. To help you get started, we’ve described a number of possible segmentation criteria or subdivisions of characteristics below, though this list is by no means exhaustive:

Demographic Characteristics

These factors relate to the composition and size of the population. Examples include age, family structure, gender, the nationality of ethnic groups, and whether the population consists of, for example, young people, retirees, or students.

Geographical Features

This has to do with where your potential audience or customers are located. This is often the first segmentation criterion, especially when your initiative or project isn’t suitable for offering through online channels. So you want to know how far they have to travel and whether you’ll focus on local media or take a broader approach.

Socioeconomic Characteristics

These characteristics are closely related to, among other things, your target audience’s income. They also include the target audience’s level of education, whether or not they own a home, and their occupation.

Psychological characteristics

These are primarily related to the needs of your audience. For example, what motivates them to attend your performance, or how much effort are they willing to put into purchasing your artwork? This is also linked to how they want to be approached and how they can be persuaded to spend more money on ancillary items.

How can you find out what the characteristics of your target audience are?

There are several ways to determine these characteristics. Always start as close to yourself as possible. In many cases, you yourself belong to the target audience, because most people come up with ideas that they themselves would enjoy. Take a good look at yourself: what would entice you to buy a ticket, how much would you be willing to pay for it, how do you want to be addressed, how far are you willing to travel for it, etc. There have also been many studies conducted on segmenting target audiences and identifying their characteristics. For example, if your target audiences are in the business market, you can access a wealth of reliable data from the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) and the Chamber of Commerce (KVK). You can also conduct your own research by, for example, looking at previous editions or similar initiatives or concepts you’ve developed. It’s also a good idea to take a look at what your colleagues are doing and see what kind of audience they attract and how people are responding. Through your own social media channels and by analyzing your website, you can also gather a lot of data about your audience. If you want to go a step further, you can ask your (potential) audience to provide more information, for example through a survey.


If, based on your expertise, you have knowledge relevant to this topic, or if you see opportunities to improve this text, we’d love to hear from you at info@cultuuracademy.nl.