Definition of a Target Market &

How to Find it!

Definition of a Target Market

My simplified definition of a target market is finding organizations or a group[s] of people that you and your business will need to identify as the most likely group to buy your products or services. These Target markets are to guide your marketing efforts and ensure that you are reaching the right people with your message.

There are a number of factors that businesses you should use to identify your target markets, including and not limited to the:

• demographics

  • Age

  • sex

  • income

• geographic location

• interests

• needs

• etc.

Identifying Your Target Market

Once you have identified your target market. You and your businesses can develop marketing strategies that are tailored to reach those specific people.

You hitting your target market is an essential part of having a successful marketing campaign. Because it helps you to understand who your target market wants, desires and needs are. Then you can create marketing messages that are more likely to resonate with Your Target Market that you're targeting and get the leads that then turn into sales and sales into profitable paychecks.

Here are some examples of Target Market Demographics:

• A business that sells luxury cars might target high-income individuals who are interested in status symbols.

  • High price item, High-income earner is one of your demographics

  • Luxury Car, Someone who is looking for a Luxury Car

• A business that sells organic food might target health-conscious consumers who are concerned about the environment.

  • A market that is looking for Healthy Organic Foods.

  • An environmentalist who has the income to buy your Higher-priced organics

• A business that sells video games might target young people who are interested in gaming.

  • Youth and even Grown Men who video games

  • Television and Movie watchers also have a strong attraction to video games

    • fantasy movie fans are great for fantasy, RPG, Adventure, etc games

    • sports channel fans for sports games

Your Target market should be a very focused and effective way to reach the right people with your marketing messages. You need to take the time to understand your target market; and create your marketing campaigns with your market in mind. Create a "Customer Avatar" (read further) that you name and give a back story based on the research that you find, this is a great way to focus your mind and increase your likelihood of success.

Here are some tips for defining your target market:

• Identify your ideal customer.

• Who is your ideal customer?

• What are their needs and wants?

• What are their demographics?

Gather all the information you can about your market and create a "Customer Avatar" / Buyer persona. This is a fictional person you create in your head. Make a physical representation of them. (ex. a drawing with a list of their characteristics, or some people have gone as far as to even make a clay or plastic model, etc) of your ideal customer. This Avatar can be used to help you understand your customers' needs and wants. Talk to them as if they are a real customer, (just be sure to seek psychiatric help if your avatar actually starts talking back to you). Meditate on what their motivations are and what their decision-making processes could be.

• Segment your market/niche down to your ideal market. Once you have a good understanding of your ideal customer, you can start to segment your market into smaller groups. This will help you to tailor make your marketing messages more effectively.

• Always be sure to test and refine your target market to a finite niche that can become loyal diehard customers or better yet a "Tribe".

  • A tribe looks out for each other. They help each other and are willing to sacrifice for the benefit of the whole.

  • Then these customers will be the ones that you can almost guarantee will keep your business afloat.

  • Once you have defined your target market, it's important to test and refine it. This will help you to ensure that you are reaching the right people for your Tribe with your marketing messages.

• You must understand what kind of business you're in. ex.:

  • a roofer helps to keep people safe and warm in their homes.

  • a shoe salesperson, helps people look good while they achieve their goals comfortably as they climb their corporate ladders.

• What are your products or services? What makes them unique? What are your strengths and weaknesses?

• Research your industry. Who are your competitors? What are they doing well? What could they be doing better?

Spy on Your Competitors

One of my favorite ways to find your target market is to research (or spy on) your competition. With the right software, you can even see:

• Who are your competitors targeting?

• What are their marketing strategies?

By understanding where your competition has done the keyword research homework for you already.

example: You can identify some of the customers that are in the less difficult keyword rankings with a KD of 5 or less, from 5 or more of your competitors, and target those keywords to target that customer traffic and snag a page one ranking. Just for learning from where you will find those potential customers who are not currently being served by your competitors and pick them up.

Social Media is Free

Social media websites are a powerhouse of research material for your finding your target market. But just be careful not to get sucked into an endless abyss of cats playing the piano or talking dog videos when you're in a clothing or health niche. Be Strong, resist the kitty, resist and you can succeed. Any of your social media platforms can be one of the most available and free tools at your fingertips to find your customers/target market.

If you don't have any customers currently then you will need to find some. I have a way to help you find them. We will have a blog post that can help you learn how to spy on your current competition and serve your customers. Then, once you have identified your target market, you need to:

• understand what it is that they want and need.

• What are their problems?

• What are their goals?

Once you understand their needs, you can develop products and services that meet those needs.

Social Media Has its own Language

If you have some cash to spend on ads Social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter allow you to target your ads to specific demographics and interests. These platforms have billion-dollar evaluations because of how well they are able to target customers.

Example: I heard a story of a guy who was able to target his wife with a personal Facebook ad on her birthday, and she was the only one to see it because of how targeted that market was for this guy.

Social Media can be a great and one of the easiest ways to reach your target market, just be sure to learn a little about how to properly set up an ad campaign or you could be marketing to a very expensive and over-saturated market and just be flushing your hard earned money down the preverbal social media toilet.

You also need to understand your target market's ever-evasive communication style.

How do they like to communicate?

What are their favorite websites?

What are their favorite social media platforms?

By understanding where your market is you can better know where to find them. By using their communication style. Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, etc. Each of these platforms has a different feel and language to it.

Example: Facebook is better for if you have an informational product to catch their interest. Instagram and Pinterest are better for well-served pictures or infographics with proper short catchy captions to get people to swipe on your ad or post. Twitter if you are more of a marketing, professional business, stock, or newsworthy, this may be the platform you are looking for. Again, all this comes from knowing who your target customer is and where they most likely will be found, and what Social Media language they speak so you can reach them more effectively with your marketing messages.

Finding your target market by any free methods or using paid tools can help you in understanding the needs of your present or future customers. This is essential to a successful marketing campaign. By taking the time to do your homework/research can save you time and money down the road. The better your information is the better you can develop the marketing strategies that will reach your target market and help you grow your business grow.

Here are some additional tips for finding your target market:

Use Google Analytics!

Google Analytics can and should become your best friend if you are still on the free tools highway. The biggest search company in the world goes ahead and gives you all the information about their how your website is running and why people are coming to it, or why they aren't. You should be using it everyday. The data that Google Analytics provides you:

• valuable data about your website visitors

• including their demographics

• interests

• location

• keywords that they searched to find you

You should be using all this information to help you identify your target market and tailor your marketing efforts accordingly.

Conduct Surveys

I had mentioned it earlier in this post that you should survey your current customers to know why they bought from you. If you are not learning from the customers that already like you. How do you hope to convince someone who is on the fence about clicking on your listing or the one before you in the search results!

Surveys are the best ways to get feedback from your customers and potential customers. Yes, you can even survey people who are not your customer yet, and if you learn what they like, want, and need, you can sell them on what you have to offer. When you use surveys to ask questions about their demographics, interests, and needs. This information can help you identify your target market and develop products and services that meet their needs.

Sales & Marketing Tip:

Craft you product or service to what you learn about your target market and not to try to fit the customer to your product or service.

Attend industry events.

I would strongly suggest attending industry events. This is a great way to network with other businesses, learn, and collect data about your target market. Because you glean such information as demographics and interests of your competition and customers. Some are even free like your local chamber of commerce in your city.

Use Social Media to Survey

Social media is a great way to connect with your target market and learn about their needs. Join Facebook groups, don't spam them, and learn from them. Gather information, like a trial survey to learn what people are looking for and don't find... Hint Hint, that could be where you find the whole that your competition left unfulfilled and you can fill that whole and get paid for it. You can use social media to conduct surveys, run contests, and get feedback from your customers. Click here for a blog post on the best times to post on social media.

Using paid advertising can be a great way to reach your target market. I suggest you take a couple of lessons on how to properly search and find keywords to target for the best price per click to get the best return on your hard-earned cash. So that you can use profitable paid ads to your target market based on your specific demographics, interests, and locations you researched before placing your ads.

By following these tips, can get you started, but if you really want to get a head start you should register for the next classes of our HERO Program you can find your target market and understand their needs. This information is essential to successful marketing and can help you grow your business.

If you want to read about more creative ways to market your business check out this post I wrote about the 25 Best Guerrilla Marketing Strategies for your business.