Why and How to Define your Target Market

A target market is the specific group of people you want to reach with your marketing message. They are the people who are most likely to buy your products or services, and they are united by some common characteristics, like demographics and behaviours.

Targeted Approach = Lower Costs + More Conversions

• Marketing to everyone costs more money.

• Attempting to appeal to everyone through one creative piece is a bad idea.

• Increase conversions and sales.

Once you know exactly who your target market is, you can understand how and where to reach your best prospects. This way you’re not spending money on marketing platforms that will not achieve conversions.

One specific message won’t resonate effectively with different demographic groups. For example teenagers and grandparents or even millennials have different buying principles. These groups would not interpret the need for the product or service in the same way, and they decide to convert for different reasons. By defining the audience you want to target, your messaging will resonate with them, and lead to conversions.

If you’ve already been selling your work for a while, you can figure this out by looking back at your past sales. Are your customers mostly men or women? Where do they live? Have they dropped any hints about their lifestyles via customer comments? What are their problems that you have solutions for?

Surveys are also another great way to find out who the majority of your customers are.

To help focus your target market, create buyer personas. It will help you understand your customers better, and guide consistent marketing decisions. For example; you might think your target market are millennials - that is still quite broad. Dig deeper and you’ll find that there are different segments within your target market. Here’s where buyer personas can help.

When creating a buyer persona include things like:

• Their personal info (age, gender, stage in life, education, job, marital status, location and children).
• How they get information, the social media channels they use, any hobbies, where they spend their days.
• What their typical day is like, the challenges they face and how they make decisions, what their goals are.
• How do you solve their problems or frustrations? How do you help them achieve their goals?
• What motivates them?