Choosing a Target Market

Choosing a target market. Those words can be quite intimidating. That is if you don’t know where to start. So where do you start and how do you define your target market? Many corporations and small businesses will do surveys and tons of research to make sure their products are aimed at their target market. Target markets that are too general and aimed at everyone may miss your defined audience, the audience you want. You definitely don’t want your product for cat owners aimed towards dog owners.

Check Out the Competition

Who are your competitors and who are they targeting? Is there something you offer that would be of use to their clients that your competitor doesn’t have? Use that to your advantage.

The Benefits of Your Product

Take a look at your product or your service. What are its benefits and features? Who would it help the most?

Review Your Website and Social Media Analytics

Want to get a better idea of who your target market is? Then look at the visitors to your website and social media pages. Your page visitors may not be your clients yet, but they can be and getting a clearer view of who’s checking out your product can be very helpful in narrowing down your target market.

Demographics and Psychographics

Demographics and psychographics help narrow down your target market even more and will be more specific in who will buy your product/service.

Location

• Age
• Gender
• Ethnicity
• Income level
• Marital Status/Family Status
• Hobbies and interests
• Lifestyles
• Personality
• Religion

Other items to consider

• Can my target market afford this?
• Are they reachable?
• Will they benefit from my product/service?

While not everyone may be able to afford your service, some will, and some will consider your service/product an investment. Myself, for example, I do photography and I consider that an investment. Not everyone can afford it, but the need to photograph memories and capture special occasions will always be there (and so will those clients that value my craft).

Narrowing Down Your Target Market

If you have a page, you can get general information about who your target market would be. Let’s say, for instance, I want to run a targeted ad for high school senior photography. I would want a specific group so my ad will reach as many people as possible that are graduating or parents that have a teen graduating (this is just for Facebook).

My target market:

Broad market

• Gender: Men and Women
• Age: 16-65 (because I also want kids that are still in high school to see this ad and mention it to their parents and friends)
• Location: Rockford, IL + 40-mile radius (close to where I am, but I want to hit the surrounding areas too and I’m willing to travel)

Detailed market (including people who match at least ONE of the following)

• Parents with teens (13-18)
• In high school, undetermined, some high school, college graduate (remembering that seniors and juniors will see this and if you get too specific, your ad won’t reach anyone)

Entertainment

• Photoshoot
• Photographer
• Portrait photography
• Student
• Visual arts
• Parenting
• Digital photography
• Arts & music

From this point, I can select more interests and other fields to narrow down my target market, but I want to keep it broad enough to hit my target market. If you narrow it down too much, you may not get anyone in your target market.

Once you figure out and narrow down your target market, building ads and sending out emails becomes a bit easier and you may save some money, and in turn, get more clients that will actually want what you are selling.

Want help with your target market? Join the Get Marketing Momentum Group and get my eyes on your marketing!