How To Identify Your Target Market In 4 Powerful Steps

How To Identify Your Target Market

Every successful business serves a defined set of customers with specific attributes which identify them as being the most likely to buy out of the larger market audience.

This phenomenon is known to be referred to as the target market of the business.

This post will address how to identify your target market and make the most of your marketing efforts and budgets.

One of the common cause for the failure of businesses is that they fail to identify who their customers are. The don’t have any knowledge of who actually is most likely to buy from them.

They market to all kinds of people, in all places and with a general sales message., with the idea that ‘our product is very great and it appeals to all kinds of people’.

But this is quite the recipe for failure as that kind of messaging will never appeal to all the different kinds of customers but pull them off because they buy for different reasons and for different purposes.

In order to ensure your business takes off successfully, whether online or offline, the first attempt you should make is to identify your target market or what you will call a buyer persona.

Your business can have different target market segments, each with its own very unique characteristics.

So with enough budget, your business can successfully target each segment with their unique message in their unique locations and get a better re3sult than a generalized message that talks to no one.

Targeting your market has advantages that will be discussed later in this post.

What Will I Learn?

Steps On How To Identify Your Target Market

1. Why Would My Customers Want To Buy Your Product

Understanding the reasons for which customers will patronize your product will go along way to identify which segment of your prospects are most likely to buy the products.

The reasons in this context are the special benefits your products give.

Apart from the overall function, the emotional reasons attached to the products help specify which segment of your audience will buy due to those reasons.

Example…Cute and Royal company is selling high-end water-resistant ceramic wrist watches for males.

Instead of just targeting everyone interested in having a wristwatch, it might target those who are more interested in having their watches last long due to being scratch-free (which is the benefit of being ceramic) and resistant to water.

These benefits of the wrist watch, apart from its obvious funtion of telling time, are the more reasons people buy products.

What You Should Do Now

  1. Make a list of all the features of your products
  2. Make a list of the benefits of each features
  3. If possible, make a list of the benefits of the benefits of the products.

2. What is The Demographics Of Your Potential Customers?

When you have written out the major benefits you want to capitalize on for your marketing message, you then need to ask what is the demographics of people most likely to respond to these benefits.

You need to identify your potential customers by criteria such as age, gender, religion, income level, occupation, education, relationship status, family size, etc.

For example…the Cute and Royal company might have to target men between 25-55 years, earning above N200,000 monthly because they have the means to buy high-end watches.

What To Do Now

Highlight the demographic characteristics of your potential customers according to which group can respond more to your marketing message and to the benefits of your products

3. What Is The Geographic Characteristics Of Your Target Market

You have to answer the question of whether your business wants to sell to potential customers within your state, region, nation, or internationally.

You might want to limit your business sales to customers locally for products that are too heavy or perishable while you may want to consider selling internationally too.

The choice of your market location will determine how you craft your marketing message to fit into the characteristics of the people in the location and the location itself.

For Example ….Cute and Royal’s marketing message could be directed only to people living within Nigeria. This would mean the currency o the price will be in Naira (N), and the description of the target market, if done well, will be that of Nigerians.

What To Do Now

Decide on the location of the potential customers you want to target, whether it is local, regional, national or international.

4. What is The Psychographic Characteristics Of Your Target Market

Your target market psychographic characteristics, dwell on your customers’ emotions, values, attitudes, and beliefs which shape their buying decision.

Beyond the features and benefits of your product, the psychographic characteristics focus on the behavioral pattern of your potential customers.

The psychographic characteristics include your potential customers’ personalities, lifestyle, interests, opinion, attitude, beliefs, and values,.

All these combine to inform how their emotions and logic judge whether or not they should buy from you.

For Example, Cute and Royal company might have discovered that its customers are mostly extrovert and newly married individuals who like partying, always acquiring original and high-end gadgets, mostly liberals and with a worldview of enjoying life.

These characteristics would help in shaping what messaging and content Cute and Royal will put in its ads to speak directly to the emotions of its buyers and influence them to buy its products.

Advantages Of Having A Target Market

The following are the advantages of having a target market you sell to:

1.I t Helps To Have A Consistent and Persuasive Copy

Having a target market ensures you are speaking persuasively to a specific market, communicating the best reasons for which they are most inclined to buy your product.

It is quite difficutal for the same copy or a general one for that matter to speak persuasively to two or more different markets.

The restaurant business, for instance, would have different messaging to attract customers who prefer home delivery then it would for those who prefer eat-in meals.

The key o ensuring your marketing efforts are fruitful is by speaking to different markets in the language they understand.,

2. It Helps To Have A Focused Marketing Strategy, Budget And Expected Results

Spending your marketing budget trying to enter attract a general market, especially one that is highly competitive can be a waste of time and resources.

Small and smart businesses target a segment of their primary market, which is sufficiently large, measurable, and with low competition with the most important factor of being the most likely to buy and focus their marketing budget on them.

This ensures you don’t; spread yourself too thin trying to reach everyone with your budget and with the same marketing message.

Segmenting your market and targeting it, therefore, ensures your money is being spent to reach the right people with the right message, leading to actual results

3. It Helps To Provide Feedback From Targeted Campaign And Customers, Leading To Improved Product Quality

A highly targeted marketing campaign leads to the awareness of which campaign resonates most with the customers and how the feedback gotten from the customers can help the businesses to improve their products and services.

Businesses that understands their customers have more success satisfying them by using their feedback mechanism to improve the product features and upgrade their products.

Conclusion

Have you identified your target market so far?
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Before you begin any advertising, your first duty is to know your target market.

And as you begin to acquire customers, you shoulo always get feedback from them on why they bought your products or what situation led them to seek a solution and why your product is the particular solution they deem fit to get.

This allows you to not only adjust your marketing message to target more of the people with the same persona but also give you the opportunity to improve your products and increase customer satisfaction.

Give a comment below if you like this post and let me know if you have any question relating to this topic or share your idea on targeting a specific market that I might have left out here.

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