Determining your Target Market

Marketing is an important part to any successful business. It can be tricky to reach exactly who you want and when you want to promote your product. Here are the steps to help you identify your target market.

A target market is a group of individuals who share commonalities. These commonalities may include:

• Age
• Hobbies
• Gender
• Income
• Geographic location
• Education
• Interests

Defining your target market is imperative to the success of any marketing plan and business. You should have a clear idea of who you are marketing your products to in order to determine how to market to them.

Ask yourself the following questions to begin finding your target market.

• What is my primary offer?
• What problem does my product solve?
• Why is what I offer better than the competition?
• Who is my ideal audience?
• What is my ideal audience?
• When does my ideal audience need my product?
• Where does my ideal audience live or use my product?
• Why does my product stand out?

When you answer all the questions, use them to guide you in discovering your target market.

Define what you offer. You should be able to quickly define what your business primarily offers. For example, an ice cream truck offers ice cream directly to multiple places within a town.

What problem does it solve? Or what solution are you offering to your customers? Keeping with the ice cream truck trend, it has the ability to go to individuals who may not be able to drive or walk to the nearest ice cream store. They are solving a problem by bringing the product directly to the consumer.

Why is it better than the competition in your area? It is important to identify why your product is better than the competition in your area. If the ice cream truck was the only one in town, they have a clear advantage as to why they are better than their competition. Even though they are competing against ice cream shops, they are able to come directly to you. What if there are other ice cream trucks in the area? How could it stand out? The ice cream truck could consider getting a different variety of flavors. While this may sound a bit silly when talking about an ice cream truck, it is important to determine what you have that is better and be able to communicate that to your consumers. You should not bring other businesses down, but you should share what you are doing to make your product stand out!

Define your ideal audience.

• Who?
  • Who will love your product the most?
• What?
  • What are the hobbies and interest of the consumer?
• When?
  • How often will your consumer need product?
• Where?
  • Where does the consumer live or use the product?
• Why?
  • Why does your product stand out?

Identifying your target market will guide you in developing promotional materials and determining when and where to use them to market your product or service.