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The Complete Guide to Finding Your Target Market [Infographic]

The Complete Guide to Finding Your Target Market

Your organization will never be successful without finding your target market and who purchases their products or services. Identifying the main segments of your audience should be one of your top priorities.

If you’re not able to understand how to find your target market, you can’t expect to grow your business. Every niche today is competitive, and you must be the first to figure out the problems that your audience faces.

Without a properly defined target audience, you risk spending money on marketing campaigns and targeting the wrong people. This can lead your company to go out of business, which is something you don’t want.

“The clearer you are about your ideal customer, the more powerful your marketing will be. You can’t help everyone, so the key is to focus on those you can serve best.”

Marie Forleo, Entrepreneur, Philanthropist & Marketing Expert

Now, let’s look closely at the process of finding your target market.

What Is a Target Market?

A target market is a group of people whom a company wants to sell its products and services to. This group is composed of individuals with the same needs and desires that an organization wishes to serve.

Knowing how to identify the target market for your company is the first step in making a business plan. It is an essential component of developing a marketing strategy. Without the right target market, a company will simply fail in its efforts to achieve success.

A target market can be defined using parameters that include demographic, geographical, behavioral and psychographic factors.

What Is a Target Market

The Importance of Identifying Your Target Market

Your target market is one of the main reasons for your success in business.

Knowing your target market makes you focus on the essential aspects of your business:

  • Creating and customizing your product and services.
  • Designing campaigns and messages specifically for them.
  • Narrowing marketing and sales campaigns, which will result in avoiding all the expenses on targeting people that are not interested to buy from you.
  • Achieving a better competitive position in your industry.

Finding Your Target Market: 15 Steps

  1. Explore Your Natural Network
  2. Check Your Current Client Database
  3. Competition Matters
  4. Look at Demographic Data
  5. Give Importance to Psychographic Details
  6. Conduct a Funnel Approach to Find your Niche
  7. Go Out and Try It Yourself
  8. Explore the World Wide Web
  9. Think About The Cost of Your Products and Services
  10. Keep Your Eyes Peeled for Changes in The Market
  11. Use Market Research Tools
  12. Hire a Market Research Firm
  13. Try a Market Segmentation Tool
  14. Conduct a SWOT Analysis
  15. Use Social Media Monitoring Tools

Before understanding your customers, you have to find them. With billions of people around the world, and with a high percentage of the population going digital, it is vital that you know how to find your target market online.

Try to see the bigger picture to find out who deserves your attention and concentrate your efforts there.

Here are a few valuable tips on how to find your target market.

1. Explore Your Natural Network

The first step to finding your target market is checking out your organizations, affiliations, alumni groups or just your neighborhood associations to see if there is something they need.

Look at them and check what products they are using. Also, ask around. Say, you have this particular product, and would they use it? If not, why? The information they provide may be beneficial to you.

2. Check Your Current Client Database

If you are creating a whole new concept, but struggle to pinpoint a particular target market, the best thing to do is search your own client database.

Who are your current customers? And what else might they need? Among your existing customers, who bring in more business for you? These individuals can be a promising target market for any new concepts you might have.

3. Competition Matters

Research your competitors – their customers might be yours, too. Knowing your competitors, where they are, what they are doing and how they are implementing strategies can benefit you. So, take advantage of any information you can get from your rivals.

“Understanding your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses, and how your own business measures up, is crucial for developing a competitive strategy that allows you to differentiate and capture market share.”

Michael Porter, Professor & Author of “Competitive Strategy”

4. Look at Demographic Data

Look carefully at your requirements and check the market’s demographic data. Consider these demographic factors:

  • Age
  • Gender
  • Location
  • Marital Status
  • Social Class
  • Income Level
  • Educational Attainment
  • Occupation

5. Give Importance to Psychographic Details

Finding your target market is more than just identifying their age, gender, or social class. A potential target market must have a single set of needs and characteristics.

Likewise, you can easily find your target market if you know how they behave, what they do and what they are thinking.

As a marketer or business owner, identify the preferences of your target customers. What type of media are they using? Assess your potential target market through the following psychographic information.

  • Behavior
  • Personality
  • Personal Values
  • Interest or hobbies
  • Lifestyle

Gathering demographic data and psychographic details of your target customers will help you to build your buyer persona.

6. Conduct a Funnel Approach to Find your Niche

Some companies are successfully implementing this concept when seeking ways for how to find your target market online. The Funnel Approach means to capture a market, nurture it, then qualify, and convert.

For example, first, you identify and capture a market, let’s say for a new cosmetic brand. Once that has been done, you have to nurture leads through ads or promotions directed specifically at them, like a free makeover or a discount coupon.

Then you must qualify your brand, remind your potential customers of the importance of your brand and what they mean to you, and now, with luck, they will follow through and make a purchase.

7. Go Out and Try It Yourself

One of the best ways for finding your target market is going out and observing the environment around you.

Here is an example. You belong to the food industry, and you want to open a new cafe. Study your potential market by sitting in a cafe. Observe the customers and the cafe personnel as they go through their day.

Try to answer these questions:

  1. What are the customers ordering?
  2. Study their customer profile. What is the age range? How much do they spend on average?
  3. Is there a particular product that is most sought after?
  4. Are customers dining in or taking out orders?
  5. When is the busiest time for the shop?
  6. Are people coming in as groups or individually?

The idea is to gather as much information as possible about your customer’s needs, so you can provide the right solution.

8. Explore the World Wide Web

If you’re serious about finding your target market, make sure you take advantage of the Internet. Observe the behavior of prospects that match your buyer personas through social media.

Study your future customers’ mindset through the comments and reviews they are giving other players or brands. You can also gauge how possible competitors are doing.

If used correctly, the internet has the information you can use to find your target market. Take advantage of it and make it work for you.

9. Think About The Cost of Your Products and Services

You should also keep in mind that not every potential customer is going to be willing or able to pay the same price for your products. You will need to come up with a pricing strategy that takes this into account and offers different options for different types of buyers.

10. Keep Your Eyes peeled for Changes in The Market

Keep an eye out for changes in the market that could affect your target market. This includes things like new technologies, changes in the economy, and shifts in social trends.

If you are able to anticipate these changes, you will be better positioned to adjust your marketing strategy accordingly.

11. Use Market Research Tools

There are a number of different market research tools available that can help you to gather information about your target market. These include things like surveys, focus groups, and demographic data.

12. Hire a Market Research Firm

If you want to get really serious about finding your target market, you can always hire a professional market research firm.

These companies have the resources and expertise to help you to gather the information you need to make informed decisions about your marketing strategy.

The digital marketing team at DevriX is always happy to help businesses identify their target markets and tailor their SEO efforts to their ideal customer profiles.

13. Try a Market Segmentation Tool

There are a number of different market segmentation tools available online that can help you to identify potential target markets.

These tools use things like demographic information and customer surveys to help you to narrow down your options. Examples include Kissmetrics, HubSpot and of course, Google Analytics.

14. Conduct a SWOT Analysis

A SWOT analysis is a great way to get a comprehensive view of your business and where it stands in relation to your competition. This can help you to identify potential target markets.

“Successful companies recognize that a SWOT analysis is a powerful tool for identifying the internal and external factors that will affect your ability to achieve your goals. It provides clarity about the best opportunities and real threats.”

Brian Tracy, Author & Business Strategist

15. Use Social Media Monitoring Tools

There are a number of different social media monitoring tools out there that can help you to track what people are saying about your brand or industry online.

This can give you some valuable insights into who your target market might be. Some popular solutions you can try are Hootsuite, Sprout Social, and BuzzSumo.

The Complete Guide for Finding Your Target Market

Bottom Line

Congratulations, you’ve made it to the end of our complete guide to finding your target market!

We hope that you now have a better understanding of what a target market is and how important it is to identify and focus on yours. Remember, this isn’t an exact science – there are no guarantees in business.

However, following these 15 steps should give you a great head start towards identifying and targeting the right consumers for your product or service.

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