Welcome to week 3 of our business series! Let’s start this blog by determining who needs to know their target market and what exactly a “target market” is. Later on we’ll discuss ways to identify your target market and why it is important for you to learn this crucial side of business.
Let’s talk about what exactly a “target market” is. According to Entrepreneur Magazine a target market is defined as “a specific group of consumers at which a company aims its products and services… The customers who are most likely to buy your goods or services.” So what does this mean to a business owner and how can we use it as a tool to grow our company if we are only aiming our products at a particular subset of people to buy our goods or services?
As a small business, it’s particularly important for us to know who our target market is to determine how and where we advertise, what topics we blog about or post about on social media, and who we do business with. If we advertised our workshops to anyone and everyone, our efforts and money would be largely wasted. Instead, we’ve worked tirelessly to understand and identify our target market to grow our business in the most efficient and best way possible. Here’s a practical example: If we marketed our workshops to, let’s say, highly educated women who have a well-established, high powered career in the economics field, the return on our efforts would be terribly low because those women, aren’t looking to switch careers to become a Postpartum Care Provider.
Now that we’ve determined why we use target markets, let’s talk about how one determines their target market. For someone to determine their target market, they must first decide who is most likely to buy the goods and services. Entrepreneur Magazine outlines some great questions to ask yourself as you get started identifying your target market.
- Are your target customers male or female?
- How old are they?
- Where do they live? Is geography a limiting factor for any reason?
- What do they do for a living?
- Where do they shop?
- What other aspects of their lives matter?
- Visually, what appeals to them?
Now that you’ve determined your target market, determine how to best reach them. This will be your first step in moving forward with your new target market. Remember, keep your target market specific and make your efforts count!
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