As a business owner, it’s crucial to understand who your target market is. Whether you own a brick-and-mortar shopfront or an online e-commerce store, you shouldn’t be guessing who your target market is or need to keep track with a manual headcount. Why is it so important to know who your target market is? Because it consists of the people who are most likely to be loyal consumers of your brand. i.e. the people who can make your brand a huge success.
Not all people will be interested in what you sell for many reasons: age, gender, interests, location, lifestyle, price point etc. However, don’t feel that you’re at a disadvantage because such is the case for all businesses. Every industry should be able to segment their consumers into smaller groups to strengthen their messaging, branding and marketing. In a nutshell, it just means that you need to hone in on the crowd who will love and buy your products and services.
If you don’t know who your database consists of, your marketing will be wishy-washy and aimless – meaning a waste of time, effort and money on your part. How will you target your Facebook advertisements to the appropriate audience if you don’t know the age group of your consumers? How will you know which billboard to advertise on if you don’t know where your customers are coming from? You get the picture. Advertising will be a shot in the dark if you don’t know who it is exactly that you want to read your messaging.
Here are some steps you can take to refine your target market:
This might sound strange considering you would expect to know your product inside out, but take a step back with fresh eyes and evaluate from a consumer’s perspective. Who is your product made for? What purpose does it hold
After evaluating your product, take to the internet (or streets) to see what your competitors are up to and how they’re reaching their consumers. You want to stand out against your competitors, so bring it back to what makes your brand unique and focus on that selling point.
If you’ve already got a database of past and present consumers, reach out to them. Whether through surveys or even phone calls, get in touch with them and find out as much as they’re willing to share – in particular their purchasing habits.
One of the more accurate ways to get to know your target market is through trial and error. Put multiple advertisements out there and analyse the results. Some will work better than others and it will need time, but it will give you definitive answers on where your consumers are coming from and what is appealing to them.
