Know Your Target Market

In order to sell a product, you need to know who you're selling your product to. If you want to sell a car, you're not going to advertise it to toddlers; you're going to advertise it to people who can drive. If you want to sell an 80's rock-and-roll CD, you're going to advertise it to people who lived in the 80's, and liked the music. You won't sell an 80's rock-and-roll CD to people who were born in the 20th century, because the majority of them don't listen to 80's music, they listen to the music of today, the music of Katie Perry, Justin Bieber, and Rihanna.

Bitterness/Sarcasm aside, there are four categories to describe your target market:

1. Geographics

Geographics relates to the location of you target market (your consumers).

They can be located in North America, Asia, Brazil, Canada, the list obviously goes on, the key here is to identify what country/countries your ideal customer is in. They can also be located in an urban or rural area, with a population of over 250,000 or under 20,000 people so take this into account, marketing in a country/region with a small population is very different to that of a large population; the means by which you would communicate your message at the least would depend on this.

They can live in a cold climate , or a warm climate, this actually does make a difference and should be taken into accounts, is there local knowledge that could be seeded in to a marketing campaign perhaps that would personalise your marketing message? It all depends on what your product is.

For example, Lays® Ketchup Chips is sold in Canada, but not in the States, the language they use would be local, you wouldn’t use New York slang; furthermore, an add campaign that mirrors the season could help to relate to the audience; imagine seeing a summery scene in an add in winter, there would be some degree of disconnect there.

2. Demographics

Demographics relates to the type of people who love in a given population, or demographic, you decide on targeting.

This relates to your target market's age (toddler, 12-17, 18-24, 35-49, 65+), gender, family size, income, occupation, stage of family life cycle (young single, young married, older married, no children, no children under 18, old single), education, ethnic background (country of origin) and home ownership.

All of this plays a specific role in defining your target market and can be broken down into sub-categories or built up together to form a few detailed buyer or customer personas.

For example, Rona advertises her home repairs company to home owners, because they own houses, so they have to fix them. People who rent don't fix the house they live in, because it's technically not theirs. There would be no sense in Rona advertising to renters in this case, however knowing more about the demographics of home owners could help her.

Are the majority of home owners females between age 35-49?

Well what else are they interested in; what information can be gathered on this demographic to inform and improve a marketing message to home owners.

Think, who really buys your product or service; it’s not always the same person who it’s for, Baby bottles are advertised for babies, but their parents buy them. Bras are advertised to women, because women wear them. Colleges and Universities advertise to high school graduates, and people who want to further their education, it varies.

3. Psychographics

It’s unlikely you’ve heard this one banded around very often but it’s equally as important. Psychographics is all about your target markets personality and lifestyle. Are they extroverts or introverts? Are they adventurous or cautious? Camping activities, events, and products are all advertised to adventurous people; people who want to have a good time sleeping outside, and don't mind getting a little dirty.

It should be self explanatory why this is important or the uses, being able to align your company or brand’s message and overall identity with the lifestyle or psychographics of your target audience, will help in letting them know that your brand if for them.

Think Airwalk in the 80’s! They aligned themselves with everything their target market loved with tv adds and in resulted in bumper growth and sales, pulling them from the brink of extinction.

4. Behaviouristics

Behaviouristics (we haven’t made this up), this relates to your target market's benefits (e.g. nutrition, entertainment), usage rate of your product (light user, or heavy user), their user status (ex-user, first-time user, or frequent user), and their loyalty status, each of these characteristics and behaviours can and should alter the way in which you interact with your target market.

Targeted marketing campaigns and messages based on this would be more effective and improve overall performance.

Many retailers have a loyally program, and every so often they have huge loyalty program events for their customer, where they have a chance to earn exra points or double/triple the points on certain products, this is a way of encouraging positive behaviours such as large purchases and return custom, but also a way of collecting data on your target markets behaviours.

It is extremely important to know who your target market is in order to sustain and grow you business effectively. If you advertise to the right group of people in the right way, there’s no reason your sales can’t skyrocket. The simple face is, being able to identify your target market is half of the battle, but the most important half is ensuring what you’re providing is a quality product or service.

Happy Marketing!