Marketing any business always carries a degree of risk, since there is never any rock-solid correlation between the number of people who see marketing messages and the number of people who proceed to buy from the brand communicating them.
However, in your drive to convert prospects into customers, you can at least find ways to tip the odds more in your favour. For a start, you can engage in target market analysis and subsequently use your findings from this to inform your promotional strategy going forward.
What is target market?
TechFunnel defines a target market as “a specific group of consumers whom you would want to sell your products or services to.” The site adds that this group is “generally comprised of people who are good fits for your products.”
It is worth emphasising that a target audience can itself comprise an array of sub-audiences — and the nature of these can shift over time. If this is all starting to sound a little complex, rest assured that it doesn’t have to be tricky for you to define your target audience.
Through hitting the above link, you can learn about the digital Pulsar TRAC tool’s proven usefulness for learning how the target audience for AirPods — the Apple-made wireless earphones — can be divided into various subgroups, including African American graduates and ‘liberal technofiles’.
Once you have a good idea of your target market, you will be able to more easily discern not only who to market your products to but also where and how to engage in these publicity efforts.
What is target market analysis?
Given how dynamic online audiences are, it might not surprise you that a business can often learn a lot more about its target market by pursuing various research methods. These include carrying out surveys and interviews with members of that market.
The people you do target as potential sources of custom can include not only prospects but also existing customers. After all, if certain people have already decided to buy from your business, they could theoretically be persuaded to make follow-up purchases from it.
Good examples of criteria you can investigate via target market analysis include the ages, occupations, educational backgrounds, personal interests and locations of your target customers.
It would also be useful for you to know what has motivated existing customers to buy from you, as this information could provide you with further insight into what is right and what is wrong with your brand’s current promotional strategy.
How could you engage in target market analysis?
You could find that you already have much of the data you need for the task. For example, you might be able to unearth this data from social media channels operated by your brand, while forms on your website might be regularly collecting personal details from customers.
Alternatively, you could actively reach out to customers in ways that resonate with them as individuals. For example, you could seek opinions from over-50s by “advertising in a specialist ‘older
people’s’ magazine”, as the Startups. website suggests.