Who Is Your Target Market? – A Marketing Strategy Guide
Whenever someone starts a business the number one question any entrepreneur, director or company owner should continually ask themselves is; “Who am I aiming to sell to?”.
“The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself” – Peter F. Druker
‘Target Market’ refers to your perfect customer, and is an essential component of any marketing strategy. It takes into account marketing stereotypes and needs to be poignant. An example of this could be a sports fashion brand looking at women, aged 24 – 26 years old from the UK, young professionals, middle-class background, no children, unmarried but dating. The more exact the better. This way we can identify the best way to target these people through marketing activities. What you have to remember it is you’re targeting a stereotype. This doesn’t mean we won’t sell to 60-year-old men who like to wear our women’s leggings, we just won’t target them.
Once the target market is identified only then can we work out a few more details; How we are going to target them? What price will they be willing to pay for what we are selling, What makes our leggings different to others? At the end of the day, there is a maximum price this person can afford and a minimum they will pay, we need to work out that happy medium.
So you’ve worked who your target market but that means nothing if you don’t appeal to them, as we won’t sell anything to them. How do we get their attention? Again, we refer back to our stereotypes; mid-twenties, young professionals we might consider targeting them through social media. Recent statistics have predicted that 70.7% of brands are on Instagram, almost 50% of Instagram users conduct product research on social media, and additionally, over a third of Instagram users have used their mobile to purchase a product online– making them 70% more likely to do so than non-users (1). It is also extremely easy, in this day and age, to connect more with your target market. You can even try collaborating with a fitness ‘Insta-star’ who can get your brand noticed by advertising your product on their account.
If your target market was for an older generation you might take more of an old-fashioned approach by heading down to the shopping centres and doing more pop-up shops etc. This isn’t about discriminating by suggesting that ‘young people do the majority of shopping online now and won’t benefit from pop-ups anymore’ it’s just about stereotypes. We realise everyone is different but we need to tailor our selling technique to the statistics of the modern world, and it’s important to grow with the times.
This isn’t to say that your initial target market will stay the same forever, you might have to tweak it as you develop your brand further. This will all come with experience as you evolve and recognise what people want and what the gap in the market is. Stereotypes change all the time. The key to ensuring you are selling to your target market is by staying connected.
It’s absolutely fine if you are going into a business you have zero experience in, for instance, you do not have to be a huge fitness bug to sell protein shakes, if you are connected with those people who are, and recognise something that would work well for that target market then go for it!
We, at Accler8me, have a lot of experience with this – and we are there to help those who may not know one single thing on how to connect with their target market, as it may seem daunting at first. You are not going to know everything about business when you start off, we recognise that and help you come up with a structured plan on who your target market is, ideas on how you can appeal to these people, and what to do next.
Ensure that you get it right straight off the bat once you launch by getting in touch with a member of our team today.
Brad Channer,
Director.
References
(1) – https://www.brandwatch.com/blog/instagram-stats/