market. Tap existing resources. For your startup company to be successful, you need to identify your target market. But it’s much easier said than done. © 2020 Attard Communications, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Now that you’ve built that understanding of what your … Your target market is one of the main reasons for your … Here is one example of basic market research: Go spend half a day at your local coffee shop. This might mean conducting surveys via e-mail blasts or newsletters, or you might find it worthwhile to contact a marketing firm that can help you gather preliminary data. Take, for instance, a recent college graduate who has just started her first job – she will have different needs than a mother of four teenage children. Certainly, it would be great if the entire world wanted what you have, but that is not realistic. Chuck Cohn is the CEO and founder of Varsity Tutors, a technology platform for private academic tutoring and test prep designed to help students at all levels of education achieve academic excellence. Regardless of your brand mission, identifying and gaining the devotion of your target audience is the necessary means of reaching your brand objectives. Follow Janet on Twitter and on LinkedIn. Choosing the right markets also means infusing conclusions with objective data. Your research may turn up industry segments or names of specific customers you should be targetting. Figure out who your customers are and where you can find them with this free, fillable Assessing your current customers and identifying the common characteristics they share is a great way to learn who else could be a potential customer for you. Listing out the characteristics of your typical customer is another good step towards identifying your target market. Do you have a need for this product?” or, “Do you know anyone who would use this?” can provide you with valuable data. How to Identify Your Target Market Demographics First, you need to know who your target demographic is. Industry publications, statistical information and special reports can all provide clues as to the audience you should be targetting and sometimes how the market might be changing. I founded…. Why Target Market Is Important in Branding . Beyond the buyer personas, you need to look at other indicators to help you examine key factors that identify your core audience. I am the Founder and CEO of Varsity Tutors, a live learning platform that connects students and professionals with personalized instruction to achieve any goal. Decide on Specific Demographics to Target. Janet is also the author of The Home Office And Small Business Answer Book and of Business Know-How: An Operational Guide For Home-Based and Micro-Sized Businesses with Limited Budgets. There are two different groups of criteria you should look at to begin getting an idea of your target market… While it is relatively simple to develop general advertising for the masses, devoting time and resources to identify more targeted markets can help you maximize your marketing ROI. It may take some time to figure out, but it’s an essential step of your marketing … Keeping track of what the competition is doing, have the greatest need for these services/products, buy the biggest quantity of them on a regular basis, are located in a geographic area your business services. A target market is a clearly-defined segment of customers that you want to sell your product or service to. Perhaps it is those who travel frequently. Next to … You will find that knowing your target market inside and out you'll have the information that you need to achieve your brand marketing … Who is most likely to use your product? If your product or service is gender-specific, you can immediately narrow your audience. Do a primary market research – Once your secondary data is collected, it is imperative that you do a … They might surprise you and think of target markets that you would have never imagined, as well as innovative ways for those groups to use your product. Which specific products in the entire lineup are most popular? I aim to share those learnings in this column. Suppose your company makes a baby stroller that is easy to fold into a compact, portable shape. Each group can be divided into smaller segments. Think of grouping them into … A target market is can be defined as a specific group of consumers or businesses at whom you focus your marketing efforts. Here are three tips to help you focus your marketing approaches: A. Target marketing is a strategy that  focuses your marketing on individuals and businesses who are most likely to buy from you. If you do a quick search online, you’ll often find existing resources that can … Such reports may describe the typical customer age, sex, preferences for items, and other helpful information. A target market can be defined using parameters that include demographic, geographical, behavioral and psychographic factors. Maybe you manufacture a DSLR camera that can withstand drops onto hard rock and submersion in water. The key is pinning down exactly who your target customer is — the tricky … But how do you do go about identifying that target market? How To Define Your Target Market. This is one of the first steps of launching a startup company. Asking questions as straightforward as, “Would you use this? For example, what makes your merchandise different from what people can buy from other big retail chains? A target market is can be defined as a specific group of consumers or businesses at whom you focus your marketing efforts. Both women require food and shelter, but at the same time, they might choose to spend their discretionary income in very different ways. Your end goal is to make it easy for your target demographic groups to see connections between their needs and your product. Upper income families, families where both parents work, and older people who no longer have the ability to do their own housekeeping, are all target customers for your services. This data might come from a variety of sources. Once you’ve found that information, it helps to create a “brand bible” for your brand: a list of guidelines for how your brand sounds voice-wise, what kind of content you post, what your … Here are seven steps that will help you identify the audience most likely to buy what you sell. T-shirts that retail for $15 can be bought multiple times each year, while a $500 coat might be a once-in-a-lifetime purchase. When is the store busiest? As you work to gather it, here are some guidelines in mind: A. Surprisingly, knowing the kind of customer who needs your service may not be enough to win sales. Almost 50% of millennial women, for instance, shop for clothes more than twice a month, compared to only 36% of women from older generations. They key to target marketing is identifying those audiences most likely to buy your products and services.Understanding how to identify that target market correctly is one of the most important things you can do when you're starting a business or launching new products and services. First, Understand Your Niche Market. For example, for a gardening service, one type of target customer is people who live in neighborhoods with well-manicured lawns, attractive plantings and colorful flowers around their homes. . Whatever your product or service, list out the core values that your product offers, … Whatever your product or service, list out the core values that your product offers, and then draw a line (or lines) to the demographic groups that prioritize these values. You can also build your own micro view of specific types of target customers. Segments are typically grouped by age, … The first step in identifying your target market is understanding what your products/services have to offer to a group of people or businesses. 4 Ways to Identify Your Restaurant Target Market When you came up with your restaurant’s concept, you likely had a specific customer type in mind – freelancers and office workers … Who is most likely to be interested in the values your product or service offers? Whatever it is that you’re selling, it’s most valuable to a very … This process – knowing to whom and when to market your product or service – can result in much higher rates of return, and it involves implementing systems, rather than relying on indiscriminate marketing. Here is how to identify your target market in 7 easy steps. For example, you run a housecleaning service. Once you compile your data, you can then apply the findings to the marketing efforts for your own coffee company. Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. Either way, the key is to collect demographic data in your surveys. The more you know about your current customers' buying preferences, the better you'll be able to target your marketing to prospects with similar needs, preferences and characteristics. Market Research Worksheet. Find out who your competitors' customers are. All Rights Reserved, This is a BETA experience. What types of parents will value it? The analysis of multiple streams of data, as well as a continual effort to identify your target customers, can help you achieve this end and maximize your ROI. While individuals within your target market are not the only people who buy from you, they are your … Identify Your Target Market Once you’ve identified the types of people that could be helped by your product you can start to develop a better idea of who these people are. SCOTUS Said ‘OK’ To Curse Words As Trademarks—Businesses Don’t Care, Can We Save Social Media? If you are a clothing retailer, whether you are offering $15 t-shirts or $500 coats will lead to you very different target markets. Your second filter might be age range. How old is each person, and what is his or her gender and ethnicity? Metrics are a great way to pinpoint promising demographic groups. Keeping track of what the competition is doing is a great idea in more ways than one and it can help you identify your target audience too. Within your target market are people who have … Growing this company has taught me valuable lessons about what it takes to be an entrepreneur and scale a company. Whenever possible, draw on diverse perspectives as you build your marketing efforts. Research, research, and research some more. Study your existing audience; Your existing customers are the perfect audience for conducting a study on how your target market … You can also tap into your network of business colleagues, funders, and mentors. To whom do you … For example, if you manufacture car parts, then your target market … To be successful, use the tips above to identify your target market and then structure your marketing materials to focus  on those ideal customers. A target market is a group of potential customers to whom a company directs its marketing efforts to promote its products or service. As you look to identify your target markets and construct your key personas within them, remember to always center around the needs, desires, and fit of your … These characteristics need not be personal ones; they can pertain to lifestyle, income earned, disposable income, geographical location, hobbies, and many other things. The Importance of Identifying Your Target Market. May not be reproduced, reprinted or redistributed without written permission from Attard Communications, Inc. About the author: Janet Attard is the founder of the award-winning  Business Know-How small business web site and information resource. To do this, identify your product or … What does this mean in a business context? This target market is what will guide your marketing strategy, and to an extent, even future … Your third and final sieve might be income level – the family purchasing a Kia probably occupies a different income bracket than the family purchasing a Define Your Target Market. Ways Entrepreneurs Can Stretch Their Capital. Another target for your marketing might be corporate clients who want their office surroundings landscaped. You can experiment with the order of the sieves and different combinations of filters to see whether you receive a different final result. These final groups you arrive at will make it easier to find the sweet spot that is the intersection of “highly interested” and “able to buy.”. If your competitor’s marketing campaign is aimed at a specific customer segment, there is a good chance he has spotted a marketing opportunity there and that he is exploiting this. The more icing, the fatter the business's bottom line. Identify your target market. Millennial men, meanwhile, spend twice as much on clothing as non-millennials do. Without the right target market, a company will simply fail in its efforts to achieve success. A good way to determine who is likely to become your customer is to clarify the problem that your product or service addresses. To identify your target market, you first need to answer these questions: What are you selling, and what makes it so unique? What demographic groups are buying these products? One final tip: remember "everyone" is not a target market. In this case, your target market might be outdoor enthusiasts who shop at stores such as Patagonia and REI. Ask them to carefully examine your product or service, maybe even to the extent of trying it for several days or weeks. Analyze your product/service. Yes, We Have No Choice, Gender Bias: Trademark Act Never Contemplated A Woman Or Gay Male President, Cannabis Challenges Differ In Each State Where It’s Newly-Legal, 5 Unexpected Places To Find Your Next Great Business Idea. Understanding those issues has been one of the keys to success of the popular Planet Fitness franchise.eval(ez_write_tag([[300,250],'businessknowhow_com-medrectangle-4','ezslot_1',143,'0','0'])); RELATED: Why Should Customers Buy from You? These are the people who: Knowing who makes up this primary audience should be your goal when you are trying to identify your target market. Identifying your target audience helps you identify your voice, personality online, what designs to push/discount, and who to target in ads. Figuring out not only who has a need for your product … For a business that specializes in home security, the ideal customers may be in a residential areas that have a high crime rate or who live in high-income residential areas. Would they purchase your own product or service? If your business offers a product or service similar to those already on the market, do as much homework as possible. If you don’t have a clear target audience in mind, your marketing … Listing out these characteristics allows you to zero in on your target audience accurately. One way to find such reports is to search the web for terms like "size of the market for [industry or prouct name]". Is It Time To Change Director Board Compensation In Private Real Estate Firms? I am the Founder and CEO of Varsity Tutors, a live learning platform that connects students and professionals with personalized instruction to achieve any goal. It started as a local tutoring platform with only two tutors and has rapidly grown into a technology-driven operation with 300+ employees and 20,000+ tutors. Likewise, whenever my company, Varsity Tutors, introduces a new service, such as online tutoring, we carefully analyze who we market to, how, and when. A clear and thorough picture of your target market is important for the success of any product and service. Lexus A target market is a group or segment of people who are most likely to become your customers. © 2021 Forbes Media LLC. … Women living alone who worry about safety may be another potential target for sales. When you have a good handle on who your target audience is, you can not only create a product that better suits their needs, you can also craft better advertising and promotional copy to capture their interest and get them to buy. As a startup e-commerce business, identifying your target market is even more significant. Keep an eye on your closest competitors’ marketing campaigns, sales spiels, brochures, websites and social media outreaches to understand their target customer base. These are the people whose needs you know your product or service will satisfy. target For example, your first bucket might be gender. Even if everyone, or everyone in a particular industry should need what you sell, you won't be able to reach "everyone" on a small business budget. The problem that you solve is doing cleaning for people who cannot or do not want to do these jobs themselves. As you move through these successive filters, you will eventually arrive at a more focused target market for your product. If you plan to sell $15 t-shirts, you now have a clearer idea of your target market: millennials who want variety at a lower cost. How can you tell who's most likely to buy? For some CEOs, it might be helpful to think of the market selection process as a multiple staged funnel. A target market is a smaller group of individuals that you do business with. A target market, or target audience, is the pool of customers to whom you want to potentially sell your products or services. A target market is a group of potential customers that you identify to sell products or services to. In this case, your target market might be outdoor enthusiasts who shop at stores such as Patagonia and REI. Similarly, while there are many adults in the US who think they should go to a gym to work out, a lot don't because they are worried about being embarrassed, or don't want to spend a lot of money, and then not use the service. Write out a list of each feature of your product or service. Which efforts should you prioritize? Ford and GM likely know that marketing pick-up trucks to drivers in North Dakota or Texas is more effective than doing so in California or New York. Knowing one’s target market allows a business to focus its promotional efforts in a manner that will obtain … I founded my company as a student at Washington University in St. Louis in 2007. We and our partners share information on your use of this website to help improve your experience. You have put in the long hours and finally finished making that killer product or service, but your work is not yet done – now you need to introduce people to this offering. Ask them what they like about your company, how they use your products, how they heard about you (if they are new) and what they prefer about buying from you. Defining your target market boils down into identifying the specific characteristics of the people or businesses who are most likely to buy your product or service. If you go back to the basic reasons why people purchase goods or services and can find ways to target your efforts to that age group, you may be successful in capturing a bigger share of the market. If you are not sure where to begin, the steps below can help you identify your As you answer this question, consider factors like age, buying power, geographical location, and marital status. Gather survey data to identify potential markets. If you don't have an established store or website, you … Your target market is not everyone who is located in your … They key to target marketing is identifying those audiences … If you manufacture surfboards, marketing your product to octogenarians might result in very limited success. There is a plethora of data that you can find online to gather a macro view of the type of customers who are purchasing products similar to what you will offer. As people place their orders at the counter, take careful notes – what drink did each person buy? This can enable you to correlate positive responses to your product or service with specific demographic groups – the same groups that you should later target. Also, you may decide, using the example above, that you'd also like to extend your target market to include women from 50 to 60 years of age. The real customer in this case would be the widow's 50-year old daughter who chooses and pays for the service. Determine what needs your product fulfills. The next time you are with family or friends, look at what products they use. For example, for a bakery, the local consumer may be a recurring source of business, but the icing on the cake (forgive the pun) may be local restaurants who buy breads and desserts in quantity to serve to their customers. ‘Booking.com’ Is A Trademark – Does This Matter To Your Business? . Additionally, you'll get better results from advertising by targeting it at those people who are most likely to buy what you sell. You may opt-out by. One of the most effective things you can do to market your product smartly and efficiently is narrow your gaze – in other words, prioritize. Steps for Identifying Your Target Market If you run a business, you’ve probably heard a thing or two about target markets. Many products and services address the needs of a variety of people but they still have a primary audience. Is a particular drink especially popular? For example, the elderly widow who lives by herself may need to have someone do the cleaning for her,  but can't afford the service herself. When do they buy them? The first step is to decide who you wish to target for your product or service.