Finding Your Target Market and Using It To Your Benefit
The most important task for any small business is to find their target market. It lays the
foundation of your marketing strategy. Knowing your market will change everything, from the name of your services or products to the different marketing channels that you will use to promote your business.
What you should keep in mind is that not everyone is in your target audience. You must identify your unique niche that actually see value in your services and are willing to pay you what you're asking.
Knowing your target audience will not only bring you more money but it will also save you money. Having a targeted audience for your ads will increase your conversions because your ads won't be displayed to people who aren't interested in your services. If you can clearly define your target group, you will be able to better understand their
interests, and how to convert them.
There are 6 steps that can help you find your target market and how to use this data to your benefit:
1. Data of Current Customers
People who are already buying your services or products are the ones you need to start
with. Understanding the characteristics of your current customers will help you find the
similar new ones. Whatever information is available about your existing customers is an asset for you. Make a database of the information so you can track averages and trends.
Following are the points that you should know about your existing customers:
Age
Language
Location
Spending power
Stage of life
Interests
Your categories should look different if you are selling B2B services or products.
In that case, you should collect information about:
Size of businesses
People who make the buying decisions
2. Social Media Analytics
In this modern era, the right way to look for the information about your customers is social media analytics. It will also tell you who is visiting your social media accounts even when they are not buying anything from you.
The following social media platforms are the most popular ones:
Snapchat
YouTube
Linked
3. Competition
You should always know who your competitors are, and what are they up to. Find out what market segments your competitors are going after. It will help you make wise decision if you know your competitors are searching segments of the market that you have not considered.
You will not be able find out each detail of the people that interact with your competitors; however, you can get an idea what type of people are approached by our competitors. The most important part is to know how your competitors are engaging with their target market.
4. Be Clear
The biggest mistake marketers make is that they are not clear about their products and services. Your customers are not really interested in the features of your product; however, they love to know about the benefits of your products.
The difference between features and benefits is the result. Tell your customers how your product or services will make their life better or easier.
When you define the benefits of your product, you also define your audience. It could be
college students looking for rental books. It could be pet-sitters for pet-owners. Brainstorm the benefits of your service or product. Your benefit statement will define the demographic of your target audience.
5. Statement for Target Market
Your statement should clearly define the audience of your target market. A good example of a target market statement is of the car-sharing service Zipcar:
“To urban-dwelling educated, techno-savvy consumers who worry about the environment that future generations will inherit, Zipcar is the car-sharing service that lets you save money and reduce your carbon footprint, making you feel you’ve made a smart, responsible choice that demonstrate your commitment to protecting the environment.”
In the above statement, the company targeted the residents of a specific city. The target
market defined in the statement is people who live in urban areas, are educated, like
technology and care about the environment.
6. Social ads
Testing social ads on your target market is the next step. You should create a social ad
according to the market you defined. The material of your social ad should be precise like your target market statement. The language should be in appropriate voice and the visuals should make sense to the audience.