Target groups

If you work as an artist or cultural entrepreneur, 99% of the time you have an idealistic goal. You want to create something, tell a story, propagate something, inspire others and maybe even improve the world a little bit. The image of the artist sitting in his attic being an artist is very outdated. Most cultural entrepreneurs and artists have an enormous urge to actively promote their work and thus touch an audience in whatever way they can. To do that in the best possible way, it is important to determine in advance which people you are targeting (your audience(s)) and how you want to reach them. From your mission and vision you make a choice regarding the activities you are going to do and the target group you want to reach. Therefore, always incorporate this into your communication plan and your plan of action.

Getting to know your audience

It is very important that you know who your intended audience is. It would be very unfortunate if you come up with something and then it turns out that the people who buy it or come to watch it don't like it at all. By knowing what kind of people buy your services or come to see you, you can respond 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 then know what social media they use, in what language you can best address them and how to entice them to take action. The latter could be buying a ticket or product or passing on your initiative or project to others. Always try to demonstrate this because, especially when dealing with grants and funds, knowing and reaching your target audience is an important part of cultural entrepreneurship.

Why it's important to segment audiences

That's why it's good to map out your target audience. You may even be able to identify several. Sometimes you hear that people have come up with an initiative or project that is suitable for everyone and for every target group. So with that you are not excluding anyone and that means you are going to target more than 7 billion people. That is impossible and nobody has even managed to reach all Dutch people with one project or initiative. If only because you don't have that much money to spend on communication. Make sure you define your target groups and subdivide them according to different characteristics that correspond to a certain group of people. So you're going to divide the total number of people into different segments. Then you can determine who you do and don't want to reach. By doing this, you can create a much clearer communication plan, on the one hand, and on the other hand, raise money much more easily from a potential sponsor or a grant maker. After all, they can see much better whether your target audience matches their goals.

How to segment target audiences

Target group segmentation means that you divide the total market (i.e., all people) into smaller groups of people who seem to have similar characteristics. You divide a pie into pieces, so to speak. Each target group thus has a profile that meets a number of characteristics that allow 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 division. On the Internet you can find many examples of how others have done this. You can go as far as you want and the rule is that the more you know about the people, the greater the chance of a successful approach. Whole books have been written and studies done on this. To get you started, we have described a number of possible segmentation criteria or subdivisions of characteristics below, without being exhaustive:

Demographic characteristics

These have to do with the composition and size of the population. You can think about ages, family composition, gender, nationality of ethnic groups and whether they are young people, pensioners or students, for example.

Geographic features

This has to do with where your potential audience or buyers are coming from. Often this is the first segmentation criteria, especially if your initiative or project is not suitable to offer through online channels. So you want to know how long they have to travel and whether you're focusing on local media or engaging more broadly.

Socio-economic characteristics

These characteristics are very much related to your target audience's income, among other things. They also include the level of education, whether or not you own your own home and the type of occupation of your target audience.

Psychological characteristics

These mainly have to do with the needs of your buyers. For example, what are their motivations for attending your show or how much effort are they willing to put into buying your artwork. This is also related to how they want to be approached and how they can be persuaded to spend more money on peripheral issues.

How do you find out the characteristics of your target audience?

To determine those characteristics, you can proceed in several ways. Always start as close to yourself as possible. In many cases, you yourself are part of the target audience because most people come up with something they like themselves. Then take a good look at yourself; how can you be tempted to buy a ticket, how much would you be willing to give for it, in what way do you want to be addressed, how far are you willing to travel for it etc. Many studies have also been done on segmenting target groups and determining their characteristics. For example, you can go to the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) and the Chamber of Commerce (KVK) for a lot of established data if your target groups can be found within the business market. You can also do your own research by, for example, looking at previous editions or similar initiatives or concepts you have developed. It's also not bad if you take a look in the kitchen of your colleagues and see what kind of audience they attract and how they react to it. Through your own social media channels and the analysis of your website, you can also find out a lot of data from your supporters. If you want to go a little further, you can ask your (potential) audience to provide more information through a survey, for example.


If you have knowledge from your own expertise that would fit this topic, or if you see possibilities to improve this text, we would love to hear from you at info@cultuuracademy.nl.