No matter what you are selling you need to understand your customer base and appeal to their wants and needs. One of the biggest mistakes you can make as a marketer is believing your product or service appeals to everyone across the board. Your best bet is to narrow down your target market and provide a specialized product or service for that group. It’s much better to have a market of raving customers begging for your product, then having to go out and convince people that your product is for them. A target market of people excited about what you have to offer will often pay more and they will most likely benefit from your product or service.
What is a Target Market? A target market is a group of individuals a business chooses to aim its marketing efforts in hopes of making a sale pertaining to their product or service. It can be separated by many different aspects. Some of which include: Location, Age, Gender, Race, Education, Income, etc. If you want to maximize sales its your duty to narrow it down by figuring out whom you want to target, figuring out what they want, and filling that void.
Defining Your Target Market
1) Analyze the Competition
When most people think competition they think negative things. Competition actually isn’t that bad if you are in the right niche. It lets you know that people are spending money in that niche and are looking for the products and services in that niche to solve customer problems. For instance, if you choose a niche like Fitness there is much competition because people are spending billions on fitness related stuff. If you can narrow down a more niche specific market in the fitness space like toning thighs, then you can create a series of products and services for people specifically looking to tone their thighs. You have narrowed it down and can now focus your efforts on solving the needs of that customer base.
2) Analyze Your Product/Service
Write out a list of each feature or benefit your product/service can produce for the customer. Figure out creative ways to separate your product/service from the crowd and build your marketing campaign around that. Explain to your target market the benefits they will receive and how much better their lives will be with what you have to offer. Tap into the psyche of the customer and use the benefits of your product or service to touch on the pain points they are having. Think about your market and figure out a way to be unique with your marketing. Learn how to separate yourself from the competition and quickly become the ‘go-to’ person in that niche.
3) Choose Your Demographic
Figure out who has a need for your product and who wants it. The following factors include: age, location, gender, income level, education level, occupation, race, or marital status. You can break it down as narrow as you’d like if there is a chance to benefit from it. Too deep may not be good, but large enough to have enough people to make it worth while. Defining the right target market is the hard part and will take some work. Research will be needed and it may take some trial and error. The trick is to find the perfect balance.
Once you know who you are targeting it will be much easier to figure out how to market to them effectively and create a business of raving customers.
Best Wishes!