How to Figure Out Your Perfect Target Market
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One of the biggest mistakes you can make is trying to promote your business to absolutely everyone. If your message is too generic, instead of attracting a wider audience, you won’t really resonate with anyone. That’s why I was really pleased when digital strategist Matt Casadona offered to write this guest post about identifying your perfect target market.
Marketing is all about delivering the right message to the right people at the right time. However, if you don’t know who your target market is, then you won’t be able to deliver your message at all. Identifying your audience is key to an effective marketing strategy. First, you’ll need to understand your ideal customers, who your competitors are, and what makes you stand out from the crowd.
A target market, or target audience, can help you focus your marketing efforts so you can create an effective strategy. Understanding as much as you can about your target market means asking questions such as:
- Where does my target audience spend their time?
- How does my target audience communicate?
- What are the right demographics?
- What problems does my product/service solve for my audience?
However, you might also want to learn more about your prospects, including their business hiring trends, decision-maker preferences, and communication methods.
Identifying Your Target Audience
Identifying your target market doesn’t have to be difficult. After all, you created your business for someone. Here’s how you can figure out your perfect target market.
Learn About Current Customers
If you’re running a business, the odds are you already have at least a few customers. Before you can identify your target audience, you’ll need to understand your customers.
Look at the information you have on your current customers and start dividing them into lists based on characteristics. For example, if you find out that many of your target customers are mothers, you can start collecting all mothers or parents
into a list. If possible, continue to break up your current customers into multiple segments.
Consider Benefits
If you’re not sure which market is best for your business, consider who would need your product. You can define all of the different features you offer and the types of people who would benefit from those features. For example, if you provide virtual organizing services, consider all of the different types of individuals who would need this type of support.
Once you begin to understand the benefits your business offers, you can start brainstorming the different types of individuals who would value your products or services.
Collect Better Data
If you truly want to understand your customers, you should begin collecting as much data on them as possible. You can begin collecting data on your current customers and look into the customers of your competitors by doing some digging. For example, if you already know who your direct competitors are, you can take a look at their social media followers to learn about the types of people they target and start to make a list of your own.
Use Surveys
Surveys can help you learn a lot about your audience and target market. You can send out surveys to current customers to learn more about them or use surveys on your website as a way to learn about the individuals who might not be converting. Once your survey is complete, you can read through them to gain insight into what your customers are looking for when they visit your website or business. Learning more about your customers can help you write better copy and start converting more.
Look at Customer Feedback
Customer feedback is a great way to learn about your customers and their experience with your business. If you’re using a WordPress website, you can easily get customer feedback sent straight to your email or use other programs to make getting and easily sift through customer feedback.
Look online for any of your brand mentions to uncover the questions that are being asked about your business and learn about how customers feel about you. This can also help you learn more about the demographics you should target in your marketing.
Work on Your Brand Positioning
If you haven’t already focused attention on your messaging and brand position, now might be a good time to go back to the beginning of your marketing and start again. Your brand positioning compares your business to your competitors, giving your business and your customers a clear view of why they should go with you. Your brand positioning is then reflected in your brand messaging throughout your website and other marketing materials.
You don’t have to take a deep dive into your positioning to help yourself come up with ideas for your target market. Instead, focus on what you want people to know about your business and your unique selling propositions.
Don’t Overcomplicate Things
After looking into your current customers, you might find your target market is completely different than what you thought it was. Instead of trying to shift your marketing efforts so your target market will align with what your ideas are, consider shifting your business to align with its current customers.
Look at the basics of your business, including your website, logo, and current marketing materials. Ask yourself what type of person would be motivated to respond to your calls to action or pick up the phone to discuss your services. Even thinking of just one person can help you learn more about your target market.
Final Thoughts
Identifying your target market can help improve the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns, so it’s a crucial step in any business planning. If you’re not sure where to start, consider looking at your current customer base and learning more about your competition.
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I do think this is such a valuable pursuit. Knowing who I have in mind when I’m writing blogs, marketing copy, presentations, etc. really helps me. I may find that not all my clients fit this one profile, but the majority do. Nobody can be all things to all people.
“Nobody can be all things to all people.” – an excellent point! And you can better serve your clients when you have experience working with others who are similar.
While my target market used to be a clear, specific demographic (parents with young kids,) it has shifted over time to include a bigger range of ages and life stages. Pivoting to virtual organizing has also changed my market because it has broadened who I can deliver services to. However, even though the demographic has changed, my marketing message still targets a certain type of client who really struggles with the organizing piece in their life. My marketing and writing reflects that and attracts those clients.
However, I know there’s more I could be doing to morph and change. It’s a process.
Sometimes we attract a certain market without even trying, but it definitely helps if you have a target in mind.
Data is key! It is easy to get overwhelmed with the data, but creating simple demographic reports will zone in on the necessary trademarks a customer would need.
Thank you for sharing this post. It is super important to find out who your audience is. Many small business owners do not know who their target audience is.
I did an exercise several years ago and discovered that nearly all my clients had a university degree and that most of them had one or more dogs. Definitely not things I would have considered but they can be very useful in creating content that attracts!
This is such smart advice. I was a Communications major in college, with a concentration in public relations and advertising. All of these things about pinpointing your market were essential when I learned them in the 80s, and they’ve only grown in importance as the media landscape (and the markets themselves) have bifurcated. It can be be overwhelming to try to look at all of this, but Matt’s right — you have to collect AND ABSORB this information for professional success!
And LOL, Janet (peeking at your reply to Sabrina), no dogs here!
Your loss, Julie!