One of the first things you need to figure out when starting a new business is: “Who is my perfect customer or client?” You should sit down and look at what you are offering and look around at who you think would be the perfect buyer/user for your product/service.
You need to know exactly (or, as exact as you can possibly make it) who your customers are. This means understanding their demographic characteristics. Some demographic characteristics are: age, gender, location, and income level. Finding out this information is part of the market research you need to do before going into business. You need to know who you are going to be selling to/talking to about your product/service.
Selecting a target market allows you to create messages that appeal to specific buyers. For instance, a lipstick company may aim the advertising message at females. Targeting even further, a mature woman may respond to a benefit-based ad that a lipstick makes lips look more youthful.
Only once you know who you are targeting, can you begin to design a plan around how you will market to them. If you try to send an advertising message to everyone, you will likely lose much of your audience simply because the message doesn’t apply to them.
Businesses usually don’t have the time or resources to be able to reach everyone with their message. By choosing to concentrate on a smaller group of people, you can use your marketing budget to reach those customers who are most likely to buy from you. This strategy also gives you the best chance to make a profit.
To identify your ideal target market, you should first do market research to identify an unfulfilled need for a product/service. Once you have identified the unfulfilled need, you should determine if you can deliver a product/service that meets that need. If the answer is yes, then you should feel comfortable with your decision to proceed.
Once you’ve identified the target market, you then need to identify the target audience, which is the intended recipient of the advertising message. Many times, the market and the audience are the same. However, when one person is the end user and another is the purchaser, the target market and target audience differ. There are quite a few products used by women, such as flowers, that are purchased primarily by their husbands. In these instances, the target market is female and the target audience is the male who makes the purchase. Marketers design strategies to meet the needs of the target market and use media channels and other ways of communicating to best reach the purchaser.
Once you know who you are targeting, it is much easier to make decisions on media allocations. If your target market is young women, there is no need to purchase ad space in every magazine. You can advertise only in those popular with that audience. You’ll save money and get a better return on investment by using a targeted marketing plan. There is no need to spend your time or money communicating with people who are unlikely to purchase your product.
By clearly establishing your target, you will know how to reach them easier and find that you won’t have to invest as much money and effort into your marketing to get the results you want. You’ll be more focused, more effective in your marketing and can get a greater return on your marketing investment.
To identify your ideal target market, you should first do market research to identify an unfulfilled need for a product or service. Once you have identified the unfulfilled need, you should determine if you can deliver a product or service that meets that need. If the answer is yes, then you should feel comfortable with your decision to proceed.
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