How to Define Your Target Market
Defining your target market is a fundamental step in creating an effective marketing strategy. It creates a foundation to which you can base decisions on how you will approach essentials like packaging, promotion, pricing, and services in the most effective and efficient ways.
Once you identify and define the perfect audience for your brand, you can focus all of your energy on reaching those who are most likely to convert to loyal customers.
Target market defined
A target market is a group of people who are most likely to buy your company's’ products or services. This group of people is united by some key characteristics that can give you an idea of how to design your messaging and promotion in a way that truly speaks their language.
When you know who your target audience is — what they care about, what problems they face, what their common behaviors are, their demographics — you can build a true connection with them through your brand identity design, custom promotional products, packaging design, and more.
Read these steps to define your target and, in doing so, raise your ROI, conversion rate, and brand equity.
5 steps to identify and define your target market
1. Complete an analysis of your offerings
Start by writing out all of the features of your product or service. For example, a few features of a Tesla would be an environmentally friendly design, autopilot mode, and a rechargeable battery instead of gas.
Once you have down the features, write a list of the benefits that your current and potential customers receive once they do business with you. A benefit for Tesla’s rechargeable batteries could be that there is zero cost of gas and minimal waste.
Finally, when you have the benefits mapped out, make a description of the kinds of people who would have their needs met through the benefits you offer. What kind of person would find value in these benefits? What does that person do for work? How much money do they make?
This is a great step in narrowing down the characteristics of people who would find the most value in your offerings.
2. Compile research on your existing customers
Utilizing what you know about the people already using your products and services is a useful tactic in defining your target audience. It’s a way to start filling in the gaps from the previous step with real data from real people. You can begin by finding information on baseline traits including:
- The average age of your current customers
- Income level
- Education level
- Stage of life
- Job
- Geographic location
Once you have a general idea of your customers' basic information, it’s time to dig further into who they are on the inside so you can find ways to connect that truly resonate with.
3. Utilize social listening
See what your customers are saying on social media about you and about your competition. This can speak to what they value in a company or product, what unmet needs they have, and what channels they frequently engage with.
4. Do psychographic research
Psychographic research goes beyond classifying your customers based on general demographic data and reveals information about their emotions, values, and interests.
It can help you understand what motivates your customers to do what they do and buy what they buy, giving you a better idea of how to direct your messaging and advertising.
Psychographic research on your current customers and people who fit into the same demographic mold can give insights into how to emotionally connect with your audience. Psychographics tell you about qualities such as:
- Their values
- The values they look for in a company
- Their interests and hobbies
- Their personality traits
- What grabs their attention
This step is vital in defining your target as it shows you how to meet your customers where they’re at and speak to them in a way that shows how much you care.
5. Put it all together and evaluate
Condense the information about your offerings and benefits, current customers, social media landscape, and psychographic research to create a detailed description of your target personas.
Once you’ve defined your target, it’s time to evaluate how you can reach them through your products, services, messaging, packaging, and all things marketing. Here are a few marketing ideas that speak to different target audiences.
A few ways to reach different audiences
The craft brewery fanatic: From packaging to custom merchandise
The techie: Simple comforts
The foodie: A tote that carries you to brand loyalty
Every brand and every target market is different. Contact us to find ways to tailor your marketing efforts to the right target audience for your brand.