The success of your business depends on making sales. Marketing is a way of communicating with your target market so they (your customers) will buy your products and/or services. It is a necessary element of business because a constant marketing effort is required to establish, stabilize and grow a successful business. If your customers see value in your product or service, then you will not only increase your existing customer base, but they will tell their friends about the quality of your products or services and thus, you will gain new customers.
Now, are enough people buying from you? Furthermore, are you reaching the right customer? A key element in making this all work for your small business is understanding YOUR target market.
So, what’s so important about target market?
A target market is defined as market segment in which a product or service is marketed to. It is often defined by age, gender and/or socio-economic group. With the current state of the economy, it is imperative to use your marketing dollars wisely. It is unpractical to try to satisfy the entire market, not to mention a waste of time and money.
By defining your target market, you are ensuring the success of your small business! If you decide not to, then it can prevent you from reaching objectives, such as:
- increased sales
- brand awareness
- market share
Often, I consult with clients who after talking to them, I find that they have not considered who their customers are. Most of them want to sell their products or services to any and everybody who will buy from them. I explain to them that they cannot be everything to everybody, it just won’t work! Imagine having to create a marketing campaign to attract a dozen or so industries. You would have to because one shoe does not fit all!
4 Ways to Identify Your Target Market:
- Demographics: The age, gender, income, family composition and size, occupation, and education of your customers.
- Geographic: The location, size of the area, density, and climate zone of your customers.
- Behaviors: The needs they seek to fulfill the level of knowledge, information sources, attitude, use or response to a product of your customers.
- Psychographics: The general personality, behavior, life-style, rate of use, repetition of need, benefits sought, and loyalty characteristics of your customers
Research, Research, Research
Yes, this takes time and effort but it is an important part in determining the who, what, where and why of your sales target. Oh, don’t think this is a one-time thing, you will need to revisit and research regularly. If you don’t stay in the forefront on what’s happening to the size and structure of your market, you’ll lose touch with your existing customers and miss chances to attract new ones.
To identify your ideal client, ask yourself the following questions:
- Do you know who your customers will be?
- Do you understand their needs and desires?
- Do you know where they live?
- Will you be offering the kind of products or services that they will buy?
- Will your prices be competitive in quality and value?
- Will your promotional program be effective?
- Do you understand how your business compares with your competitors?
- Will your business be conveniently located for the people you plan to serve?
Develop a Client Profile
Most small business owners skip this very important first step in the selling process. Often, this is due to believing that ‘everyone’ is their customer. Once they realize that they need to define their target market, the questions above play a critical part in setting up their client profile. Because circumstances change without warning, you might have to tweak or change from time to time, but it’s common!
The bottom line is that business owners MUST identify their target markets because without a clearly formed definition of your target market, you risk spending precious resources such as time and money on advertising and marketing that will not provide a good number of leads and help you get a good return on your investment (ROI).
WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR E-ZINE OR WEB SITE? You can, as long as you include this complete blurb with it: Sylvia Browder is CEO of Browder Consulting Group, a virtual small business consulting and coaching firm. She is currently employed as a Project Director, business coach and consultant for the Women’s Business Center, Inc., a non-profit economic development organization with a mission of empowering women to start and grow successful businesses. She also serves as a volunteer SCORE counselor, an organization dedicated to educating entrepreneurs and the formation, growth and success of small business nationwide. She is also a Technical Assistant Provider for SBA’s Community Express Loan Program. For FREE weekly articles go to Sylvia Browder’s Blog for Women Entrepreneur’s, www.sylviabrowder.com. She can be contacted at info@browderconsultinggroup.com..
———–
- Join ‘Minority Women on the Rise’ on Facebook: http://tinyurl.com/sylviabrowder
- Follow me on twitter: http://twitter.com/sylviabrowder
- Are you LinkedIn? I am and invite you to link with me: http://www.linkedin.com/in/sylviabrowder
Sylvia Browder is CEO of Specialty Home Services LLC, a Home Improvement Company; a Small Business Consultant at Browder Consulting Group, a startup consultancy firm to help women with startup assistance, marketing, website and graphic design work and other support services. In addition, she has co-authored several published books; publisher of ‘Sylvia Browder’s Blog for Women Entrepreneurs’ a lifestyle blog; and publisher of ShopSpendBlack.com Business Directory & Blog platform created to help consumers find black owned businesses in a searchable format. In her spare time, she enjoys spending time with her husband of 30 years; 5 adult children and 5 grandchildren; church; friends and motorcycle riding.
The “four ways to identify your target market” is spot-on. Too many people concentrate too much time on #1 and #2 — “directory information” — and ignore #3 and #4. You have to know their mindset as well as their circumstances!
Hi!. Thanks a bunch for the info. I’ve been digging around looking some info up for shool, but there is so much out there. Google lead me here – good for you i suppose! Keep up the good work. I will be popping back over in a few days to see if there is updated posts.
Great stuff as usual…
I just found your blog and wanted to let you know that I already bookmarked it in 4 different websites. Thanks for providing great content for us to read.
You’ve done it once more! Superb read!
Resources like the one you mentioned here will be very useful to me! I will post a link to this page on my blog. I am sure my visitors will find that very useful.
Cool site!! Great posts. Thank you.
Extraordinary post as expected.
I’ve been into blogging for quite some time and this is definitely a great post. I signed up for your newsletter, so please keep up the informative posts!
Good luck on your blog, and feel free to comment and subscribe to my blog as well when you get a chance: Earn Extra Cash Online with Dino Vedo. Also my blog is open to any guest posting and I would love if you would review some of my products I have and we could easily make each other some extra cash!
All the best,
Dino Vedo
PS: Like my Facebook fan page and follow me on Twitter and I’ll do the same for you! 😉
Amazing blog and very interesting stuff you got here! I definitely learned a lot from reading through some of your earlier posts as well and decided to drop a comment on this one!
Anyways, I just signed up for your newsletter and will definitely come back for more. Feel free to do the same for my blog when you get a chance! 😉 Also, if your looking to do some guest posting or promoting some of my products definitely check out my site: Make Easy Money Online with Dino Vedo.
All the best,
Dino Vedo
PS: Like my Facebook fan page and follow me on Twitter and I’ll do the same for you! 😉
Hi Dino,
Thanks so much for visiting my blog. I appreciate it immensely! I had the pleasure of visiting your blog and it is a wealth of information. I also subscribed to your RSS feed. Looking forward to getting to know you.
Sylvia
Very interesting post. I’ve found your website on Yahoo, and I’ve been reading some useful information on it. Keep up the good work.
This is a very thought provoking article. I am excited to see this topic being covered. I like reading these types of articles they help to keep me in the know.
There is obviously a lot for me to discover outside of my books. Thanks for the great read 🙂
You are very welcome!
I really enjoyed reading this post. Great step by step description!
Thanks for this useful article.
I’m a blog enthusiast and with so many blogs on the internet now, not very many stand out. Your blog caught my attention and I thought that I would post to let you know that.
I’ve read a few of the posts in your website currently, and I love your style of writing. I added it to my top picks blog listing and will be checking back in the near future. Take a look at my internet site too and let me know what you believe.
Hello, I just now ran across your site through Bing. Your own article is really pertinent to my life now, and I am pleased I discovered your blog post.
This is a good post, I was questioning whether I might use this write-up on my internet site, I will hyperlink it back to your blog although. If this sounds like a problem remember to tell me and I will take it down instantly
Thank you so much for useful information. I will visit your site again 🙂
Hmm it it appears like your site ate my very first remark it’s super extensive) so I imagine I will simply summarize things I submitted and state, I’m thoroughly enjoying your site. I too am a driven weblog blogger yet I’m still new to everything. Have you got other points for rookie bloggers? I truly genuinely enjoy it.
This is a great post. I will definitely be reading this blog more.
I think you know how to write a really nice post. Thanks!
Thank you for a wonderful post. I enjoyed it.
Pretty good post. I just following your articles and wanted to say that I have really enjoyed reading your blog posts. Anyway I’ll be subscribing to your feed and I hope you post again soon. Thumbs up for your blog post!
This is truly a wonderful post. I will certainly be reading this blog much, much more.
Hey Kesha,
Thank you so much for visiting my blog. I appreciate your support. Please feel free to subscribe to my RSS feed and share the link with your connections. Have a great day!
Sylvia
Hi Kareem,
So glad you found value in the article. I appreciate your support. Please feel free to subscribe to my RSS feed and share the link with your connections. Have a great day!
Sylvia