Research - Target Audience

Before we go into film audiences, we must establish what a target audience is:
In marketing and advertising. A target audience, is a specific group of people within the target market at which a product is aimed. e.g. An energy drink being targeted at those who partake in sport.
A target audience can be formed on people of a certain age group, gender, marital status, etc., e.g. teenagers, females, single people, etc.

An audience is a group of people who participate in a show, in different ways; allowing criticism and reception. According the UK Film Council. Audience data describes the gender, age, ethnicity, social group and religion of the film audience as a whole and for particular popular film titles.

As thrillers are typically rated from the 12-18 age range. All thrillers don't have a specific audience. Sub-genres give an accurate answer as their target audience. For example, action thrillers (No Country for Old Men, Gangster Squad, etc.) are targeted at young males (16-29). Whereas, thrillers that borderline on horror (The Sixth Sense, The Village, etc.), the demographic would be for younger females. Crime thrillers (Memento, Se7en, etc.) are targeted to a mature audience; adults.

We intend to film a conspiracy thriller. So the audience for this may appeal especially to a mature, young/middle-aged audience of any gender (18-40).