What You Need to Know About Your Target Market

Defining your target market is the first step in building your marketing plan. Sending the word out to the world in general will not yield results. You have to identify the specific group of people most likely to be interested in your service and direct all your efforts to them.

1. Find your niche. To oversimplify, if you are selling maternity clothes, you don’t want to market to all clothing customers. Right at the start, you can eliminate men and women past the childbearing years as your target market. It’s not that an older woman might not be shopping for her daughter, but that’s not the population most likely to be searching for your product. Narrow down your niche to be as specific to your business offerings as possible.

2. Once you have identified your market, you need to create a profile. Write down things like age group, gender, and location. What kinds of publications are they likely to read? Where are they likely to get their news sources? Where do they shop? You want to find out as much as possible about the buying and spending habits of these people.

3. If you are marketing nursing equipment, think of other things that might be of value to your customers. This will be of use when it comes time to sell ads on your web space. They are likely to be interested in places that sell uniforms, comfortable shoes, even support stockings since they are on their feet a lot. Brainstorm as many things as you can come up with and write them down!

4. Speak the language of your audience, both visually and in your writing. I don’t mean change who you are, I only mean remember who they are! My daughter is selling her own music CDs on the web. Her target market is largely made up of young people. The style of her website, the look and feel, is designed with this in mind. If she was designing something for herself, it might look quite different, but she knows what will appeal to her specific target market and in a few weeks has built her contact list to two thousand people.

5. Take the time to get inside the minds of your target market. What problems do they have that could be solved by your service? What keywords are they likely to use when they do a search on the website? There are free keyword tools to use to help you research this. What is it they want out of the service they buy?

6. It is important to know the difference of what your perception is of your service and why someone might buy it and the concept of each individual buyer. Why are they making this purchase? Back to the maternity clothes example. One woman may want something that will help her to feel stylish throughout her pregnancy. Another may be much more interested in being comfortable. If you sell the second woman a well made and fashionable maternity dress, but she can’t move around freely in it, she will not be satisfied with her purchase. The first woman would probably love it.

7. As much as possible, talk with people in your target market to find out about these types of things. What are they looking for and what are their expectations? You’ll be surprised at how many different reasons there can be to buy the same product. The more you learn, the better you will be able to refine your marketing plan to encompass solutions to these needs. And you will have a much better idea of what kind of information to get from a new customer so that you can direct them to the particular product that will meet his or her expectations.