How To Define Your Target Market

I have always maintained the fact that as long as you do not know who your target audience is, your marketing efforts will go to waste or at least frustrate you at some point.

If you do not market to your target audience, you will get frustrated with your marketing efforts. Let's start from the beginning: What is a target audience?

Marketing revolution defines target market as:

 "Your target audience refers to the specific group of consumers most likely to want your product or service, and therefore, the group of people who should see your ad campaigns and advertisements"   

Please see the word should in bold in the above statement.  Not everyone should be your target, since not everyone is interested in your offers. Are those who see your marketing posts and ads your target audience?

Why Knowing Your Target Audience Is Important

1. You will know the right content to create for them in order to convince them to buy from you.
2. You will know how to craft your business message to show how you can help them solve their needs and wants.
3. You will focus your marketing efforts to the right people. This will save your money and time.

As of January 2021, there were 4.66 billion active internet users globally and the internet gives you unlimited access to these users. The bad news is that not everyone is interested in your products/services

How Do You Know Your Target Audience?

To know who your target audience is, answer the following questions

1. What is the age of your ideal customers?
2. What is their gender?
3. What is their purchasing power? Can they afford your services?
4. What is their location? Does your products target people from a specific region?
5. What pain points does your ideal customer have?

If you are a B2B company, also consider answering:

1. Size of the business. Try to understand what type of businesses buy from you. Are they start-ups, mid level companies?
2. The decision maker. You should know who holds the power to make decisions. Are you targeting the CEO, HR?

Answering these questions will set you in the path of creating your target audience profile which will help you better understand your target audience. To answer them, you can use the following points:

• Look at your current customers

You can start with what you have. Analyze their ages, gender, location as well as how long they take to make the decision to buy and what influences them to buy. I remember my former employer telling us that if you want to make a client buy from you faster, make them feel your product/services. He used to give us an example of clothes sellers. When you go to shop for clothes, they usually encourage you to wear the clothes that are to your liking and even have mirrors for you to see yourself in these clothes. Why? Because when you do, it feels like you own the clothes and chance are, if you were 50/50 about buying, the odds will increase and you will end up buying. The point is, know what influences your target audience to make a purchase.

• Look at your competition.

Who are they targeting and how are they crafting their marketing messages? 

By analyzing their content, offers, social media marketing strategies, you’ll also see what they are missing and how you can fill in the gap.

This can also give valuable insights into your own target audience. Because of the similarity in the offered product or service, your target audiences will likely be similar. 

When looking at competitors look at:

1. Their price. Is their price low? high? Can you offer a better price?
2. Are they active on social media? What are they posting and how is the audience responding? See what people are saying on their social pages and see if they are looking for something extra or there is a need not been met. Come in and save the day!
3. Check for any missed opportunities and see if you can come up with a better solution
4. Check why clients are interested in them.

• Ask yourself, what problems does my business solve?

This question will help you know who your target audience is. Take an example of Mercy.

Mercy's neighborhood recently received a big boost because a university was set up in the area. This opened many business opportunities for their village and she could see people selling chips, clothes, and shoes. 

One thing she noticed was that the students had to travel to the shopping center to get their papers printed or even photocopied. 

She decided to open a cyber café. Her aim was to help these students save on bus fare as well as time spent going to the shopping center.

Now, before the university was set up, no one needed a cyber café. The small group who did, got the services either on their way to work or at work and at the time, a cyber café was not a viable business idea. But after the university, there was a need and Mercy took the opportunity and helped solve that need. Mercy knew that her target audience was the students and not necessarily residents of her area.

Conclusion:

When it comes to marketing, whether online or offline, you need to know who you are targeting. This will help you create marketing messages fir for them and you will see a considerable rise in your leads and sales.

Oh, thank you so much for getting me to 3,000+ views even before the end on the month! It is because of this that I secured a deal with ewall, a students blog and be part of their writing team😊 I am honored and thank you all!.

This screenshot shows stats for Tuesday night

If you would want us to work together, and you need a writer for your website blog, I am your girl! You can reach me via +254716352252.

Let's keep the views coming in!