For any given business, having a well-defined target market is most important. In order to build a solid base for your brand. It is necessary that you must first identify your target audience. It is not possible for a business to target every customer. Thus, you must tailor your target marketing as part of your marketing strategy.
To define your target market is one of the most important tasks because it is the foundation of all your marketing strategy elements. How you develop and name your products or services right through to the marketing channels you use to promote them is also a thing to keep in mind. Targeting a specific market is important no doubt but does not mean that you are excluding people who do not fit your criteria.
Target Market Definition
‘Target market’ is a term used by different marketer to define their audience whom they are targeting for their product. This refers to a group of people to whom the company wants to sell its end product. It is a combination of end potential customers for whom the company is desired to market its product.
In a simple way, we can say that the simplest formula to know our targeted market where all the desired customers are compiled in the form of ingredients in a single capsule.
Your task is to identify and understand the targeted group of audiences in all prospects that are more relevant to your business. The better you understand your target market, the more closely you’ll be able to focus your ads, so you can pay only to reach the audience most likely to convert into customers.
Examples of the target market
If we see in a wide range of popular brands which have shown good results after targeting their target market where its potential customers are staying. Here is a brief view of these popular brands-
The target market of Facebook
If we see the initial phase of Facebook the company has only targeted the college student for its platform. But after getting huge popularity in the united states the company starts to move to the international market. And after that, the company focuses his attention with the age group of 25-34 years and majorly in 157 countries.
The target market of Netflix
To see its user base mainly the company has targeted only those countries where the internet facility is easily available. As before the launching of Jio( An Indian telecom company), they decided not to move towards this market. But after the launching when the company has waved all his facility for 6 months and with a huge number of internet user base the Netflix started to step in this market.
The target market of Airbnb
Here the company has targeted those people who are mainly travellers and looking for a spacious apartment that is affordable and functional. And after targeting the global growth rate of this company since 2009 is 153%, and 45% increase in united states booking year by year and there is 102% increment in the senior host and many more.
The target market of Apple
In just 7 years the apple has dominated the smartphone industry with over 60%, because of target marketing. As they are targeting in 2:1 for men and women, the average age of the user is the rage between 35-44, 1 out of 4 people age ranging between 18-34 have an immense desire to purchase apple product at some point in the next 6 months. 94% of Apple device users are wealthy.
This blog will help you understand who are already interacting with your business and your competitors, then use that information to develop a clear target group as you build your brand. It’s all about narrowing your focus to expand your reach to target more audience.
Tips To Help You Define Your Target Market
Defining your target group more clearly help you to better understand how and where you reach your best prospects. This is all about targeting your marketing efforts effectively and not preventing people from buying your product. People who are not included in your target market can still buy from you, they are just not your top focus in crafting your marketing strategy. With the help of a clearly define your target market audience, it is much easier for you to determine where and how to market your company.
1. Know Your Customers
Do a little research to find out what persuades customers to buy your product. Do not make the mistake of marketing your product or service before you have defined your customers. If you do so, you’re just throwing your marketing money away.
Marketing is not just a matter of placing ads with any publisher. It is a method of attracting new business. Before you hope to achieve your business goal with this, you have to make sure who you want to target with your marketing. You need to better understand your target market before you can reach them.
Define your target market customer by knowing possibly everything about him or her. Think carefully about your product or service and your customers too. This thing is more useful while creating content marketing strategies.
This is the most important point while accessing the target market as it helps in differentiating the targeted customers. If a big company is doing work in many segments then at the point of ascertaining the targeted customer it has ascertained a different target customer for each one of them. And by doing this many small business houses are giving a tough competition to the big ones.
2. Establish Your Customers’ Demographic Profile
Demographics are extremely important for targeted marketing. Obviously, you do not want to be marketing skateboards to seniors or expensive furniture in a low-income housing community.
Establish the demographic profile of the target market, which includes information such as How old are they? What is their gender? What is their marital status? Do they have children? If so how old? Where do they live? What is their income level/net worth? And more.
Here is how to check the customer’s profile?
Dividing the market into these demographic segments helps to use time and resource more efficiently. More wisely to say that if you are distinguishing customers after seeing their demographic profile it is very much helpful for their business concerns.
For example- If your concern is dealing with interior designing and while choosing your target market you had chosen homeowners between the ages of 35 to 65 with an income group of $150,000 plus in new york then it is correct but the range is broad. So for competing for big business houses, the target market must be very narrow and specific like for kitchen and bath remodelling purposes. Then in this, the competition is low and there are more chances for business and brand development.
3. Analyse Your Target Customers’ Lifestyle
Lifestyle is also important when determining your customers’ profile. Working folks have lifestyle priorities and constraints on their time that retired people do not have. Is your audience employed or retired? How they like to spend their spare time? What are their hobbies and shopping habits? What other products do they buy? Where do they go on vacation? After analyzing the customer’s lifestyle it becomes easier for improving your marketing strategy.
For example- If your concern is dealing in women clothes so for this they must make an estimate of what age the target audience will be from are they from Millenials or gen Y age ranging between 1977-1995, or are the from gen x from 1965-1976. As in research, it was found that almost 50% of Millenials do shopping twice a month compared to 36% older than that.
The internet and several software tools offer a wealth of information from various sources that can provide you with up-to-date market research and current consumer trends. So this is also a great way to you must think about it and make your marketing plan accordingly.
4. See What Your Competitors Are Doing accordingly
If your targeted audience is currently buying a similar product or service from one or more competitors, find out the reason. Although, some common reasons as to what your competitor is offering may be lower prices, better service, or that there is no competition at all for the product or service at present.
You need to develop your target market as specifically as possible if you are going to market your product or service effectively. Think of your customer as a person and visualise him or her in detail.
It is more important to understand what type of goods and services your competitor is serving whether the goods provided are at a reasonable rate or below than that, are they are providing quality services or not. What marketing techniques they are following is the services are much more appealing or strategically followed.
If you are not able to visualise your customer clearly and distinctly, then you need to research your potential customer until you can. Because until you can define your target market, you will not be able to make more precise decisions that need to be made about marketing, such as how, where and when to advertise. If your competitor is converting website traffic into leads then you must concentrate on this that how to increase website traffic? whether to use content marketing strategy or move for paid internet advertising.
5. Analyse Your Product or Service
The product you sell to your customers matters equally as your brand. You should analyse your products from time to time and find out if there is any improvement or change necessary. Write out a list of each unique and main feature of your product or service.
It is also one of the main tasks in selecting the target market to analyze the type of product and services which is somehow different from the other one. And after that prepare your SWOT analysis i.e what are the strength, weakness, opportunity and threat that are prevailing in the markets.
And afterwards, list the features and benefits of the products you are providing. Features are what your product is or does. The benefits are the results. Once you have your benefits listed, make a list of people who have a need that your benefit fulfils.
When the customer can clearly identify with your brand and your unique selling propositions than this is going to be easy to stand out from your competitors.
6. Evaluate Your Decision
After you have successfully decided on a target market, you will still have a few more questions to consider. Questions like Are there enough people in your product’s criteria? target them really benefits you from your product or service? Will they see a need for it? Do you understand what drives your target to make decisions? Can your customers afford your product or service? Can you reach your customers with messages? Are they easily reachable?
And after doing a deep evaluation of your competitor’s decision making policy state how his policy is different from my policy and strategy and take decisions accordingly.
You can have more than one niche market if your marketing message is different for each niche. If you are able to reach both niches effectively with the same message, then maybe you have made your impact and broken down your market too far.
Also, if you find there are only a few customers that fit all of your criteria, maybe you should re-evaluate your target. The trick is to find that perfect balance.
Conclusion
Defining your target market is the hardest part. Once you know who is your potential audiences, it is much easier for you to figure out which media you can use to reach them and what marketing messages will you use to resonate with them.
For doing a deep analysis of your customers, sort out there demographic profile, their lifestyle and access what other competitors are doing then you must select your target audience. And after seeing the exact potential of your product you must continuously update and upgrade your targeted audience according to your product policy.
Instead of sending direct mail to everyone in your ZIP code, you can send it only to those who fit your criteria. Save money and also get a better return on your marketing investment by defining your target audience well. As we all know marketing is a tactic in which we are investing less and earning more. To become more successful in targeting in marketing use the real data and facts to form your ideal audiences and always keeps researching to learn more about your ideal customers.