Customers must be known by sales teams and entrepreneurs. You must ask yourself, “Who is the best match for my offering? What are their passions and priorities?” Answering these questions can assist you in prioritizing the transactions that are most likely to be won. But how do you identify a target market, and what precisely is it?
Let’s take a deeper look at it with firstly understanding what targeting marketing is
What is Targeting in Marketing?
Targeted marketing is a strategy for increasing product or service awareness within a selected (targeted) group of audiences who represent a portion of the total addressable market. Depending on who the marketer is attempting to contact, the targeted audiences that comprise the whole market might be particular consumers, homes, professionals, or corporations. It has been demonstrated to be an excellent method for assisting you to build your organization, produce money and increase your total ROI.
Types of market segmentation can be conducted based on the following three essential factors
Demographics
Demographic segmentation is typically the most essential criterion for determining target markets, hence understanding demographic data is critical for many firms. A liquor distributor, for example, could seek to tailor its marketing efforts based on survey findings that show that beer is the beverage of choice for persons under the age of 54—particularly those aged 18 to 34—while wine is preferred by those aged 55 and older.
Demographic classification is based on quantifiable statistics such as
- Gender
- Age
- Earning
- Education
- Race
- Religion
- Marital Status
Geography
Geographic segmentation is the process of segmenting a market depending on its location. One example is home addresses, however, depending on the extent of your business, you might also use
- Area code
- City
- Province or state
- Region
- Country (if your business is international)
Physiography
The target market is divided into psychographic segments depending on socioeconomic status or lifestyle choices. The socioeconomic scale runs from wealthy and well-educated at the top to ignorant and unskilled at the bottom.
Values, beliefs and interests are all part of the lifestyle-preferences grouping. People who prefer an urban lifestyle over a rural or suburban one are examples, as are pet owners and those who are concerned about environmental problems.
Psychographic segmentation assumes that people’s purchase decisions reflect their lifestyle preferences or socio-economic status.
Why is Targeting in Marketing so Important?
Marketing targeting benefits both brands and customers. It enhances marketing tactics and audience interactions, increases brand recognition and loyalty, and even leads to better goods and services. Furthermore, target marketing enables companies to approach customers in a more real, relevant, and intimate manner.
So, if you’re having trouble standing out in a sea of identical products and services, consider employing this strategy to expand your business and connect with additional clients.
How is Target Marketing Entirely Different From Other Marketing?
Targeted marketing differs from larger tactics that try to generate awareness, such as billboard advertising. Targeted marketing begins with determining “who” is a suitable fit for a product or service and then sending customized messaging to that specific audience. This is not the same as beginning with “what” the advertising message is and expecting people to respond to it. When a marketer begins with the “what,” he/she may not know who will respond to a message or whether it is relevant to them.
For example, a certain someone goes to buy a dress for her girlfriend. Now it is important for this gentleman to specify “who” does he wants this particular dress for. This detail would allow the brand to bring forth the accurate choice he desires. Therefore, data like that carries a lot of significance as it increases the likelihood of conversion and revenue growth for the company.
When implementing email campaigns and online advertising, marketers may build individualized messages that appeal to the reader by understanding the “who.” This increases the likelihood of conversion and revenue growth for the company.
Having understood the basics of target marketing, here is how you have to get started with it
How To Get Started?
Marketing targeting benefits both customers and brands. It enhances product development and operations, allowing a brand to define itself, stand out and have a greater effect. But before you begin target marketing, you must first complete a critical task.
The finest target marketing strategy always begins with the development of a clear and thorough buyer persona. A buyer persona is a semi-fictional figure who portrays your ideal consumer. It is a thorough account of a person in your target audience’s characteristics, qualities and habits.
Knowing who your ideal audience is will help you pick which target markets to concentrate your efforts on. When you have a thorough understanding of your ideal consumer, you may develop strategies to segment them into a more focused audience.
To construct a buyer persona, picture your ideal customer and describe them as follows
- Demographics
- Roles in the workplace
- Values and objectives
- Challenges
- Influence sources
- Purchasing Decisions
Don’t make educated guesses about the details that identify your ideal target consumer when you develop a buyer persona. To be effective at marketing targeting, create your buyer personas using genuine data and facts. Instead, to understand the ideal customer, you can:
- Conduct interviews with current and previous consumers.
- Speak with your sales staff to learn about the trends they are seeing and experiencing.
- Keep track of data from your Point of Sale systems and web analytics.
- Engage in social listening to understand what discussions customers are having about your brand and industry.
How to Identify Target Marketing Opportunities?
If you’re not sure where to start, the methods below might assist you in determining your target market
Begin with the problem
Clarifying the problem that your product or service addresses are an excellent method to assess who is likely to become a customer. For instance, suppose you manage a housecleaning service. Cleaning for folks who cannot or do not want to undertake these duties themselves is the problem you solve. Upper-income households, families with both parents working, and elderly persons who are unable to perform their own housework are all potential consumers for your services.
Specify the qualities of your customer
Another helpful step in identifying your target market is to list the qualities of your typical consumer. These traits do not have to be personal; they might be related to lifestyle, income generated, discretionary income, geographical location, hobbies, and a variety of other factors. People who live in communities with well-kept lawns, attractive plants, and vibrant flowers, for example, are one sort of target consumer for a gardening business. Corporate clients that want their office grounds manicured might be another target for your marketing.
Investigate your present customers
Assessing your present customers and recognizing the common features they have is a terrific method to discover who else could be a prospective consumer for you! Inquire about what they appreciate about your firm, how they utilize your products, how they learned about you (if they are new) and what they like best about purchasing from you. The more you understand your present customers’ purchasing habits, the better you’ll be able to focus your marketing on prospects who have comparable wants, interests and traits.
Study about publications, data and special reports from the industry
Industry magazines, statistical data and special studies may all give hints as to who you should be targeting and in certain cases, how the market is evolving. Such reports may indicate the typical customer’s age, gender, item preferences and other useful information. Searching the web for phrases like “scale of the market for [industry or product name]” is one approach to locate such reports.
Keep a tab on who does your rival wants to target?
Keeping tabs on what your competitors are up to is a good idea in more ways than one, and it may also help you determine your target audience. If your competitor’s marketing effort is directed at a certain client category, there is a significant likelihood he has identified and is capitalizing on a marketing opportunity. Keep an eye on your rivals’ marketing initiatives, sales pitches, brochures, websites and social media outreaches to learn more about their target client base. Your investigation may uncover industry sectors or particular consumer names that you should be targeting.
How to Improve Your Strategy Using Target Marketing?
Target marketing can be conducted using two crucial methods as strategies
- Digital Marketing
- Conventional Marketing
Digital marketing
Here are some digital marketing strategies for target marketing that might help your brand
Marketing communication
Improve your marketing messaging by speaking in the language of your target audience. When you know your audience well, you know how to write content for a website, generate text for social media postings, and utilize words that connect and resonate with them.
SEO
Increase the probability that your target audience will discover your brand through a search by optimizing your content for the top keywords that your audience searches for. Targeting in marketing allows you to find phrases and words that your target audience uses so that you may target those terms and drive traffic back to your website.
Content marketing
Create more useful, tailored content by concentrating on the specific interests and demands of your audience. Instead of writing generic blog posts, e-books, and infographics that your audience will ignore, boost your content marketing efforts by providing the material that addresses their individual needs, concerns, and desires.
Email
Use marketing targeting to send emails to the appropriate individuals, at the right time, and with the correct content for their stage of the buying funnel. Outline your customer’s purchase decision process using what you know about them, and identify the points where you may utilize email to lead them through their trip.
Conventional marketing
The conventional marketing methods require us to consider
Handouts
A handout is usually a printed document, such as a flyer or brochure, that promotes a company, event, or sale. You may use these flyers to inform neighborhood members about promotional activities taking place at your institution by displaying them in public locations that they frequent. Brochures, which may be distributed at events or while visiting clients, can give information about a firm or describe the advantages of a product. Potential clients can carry these handouts with them or save them for later use if they wish to learn more about a company or product.
Event marketing
You may use event marketing to design promotional materials to display at industry events such as seminars, conventions, and conferences. You may design booths as well as bigger materials such as signs or banners to entice guests to come to your booth and learn more about the firm and its products. Set up comparable booths at other local events, such as fairs or festivals, to acquire local notice. You may also improve brand familiarity and exposure by sponsoring events such as sporting activities.
Referrals
Referrals entail encouraging your existing customers to inform others about your organization and the benefits it offers. Customers might be asked to promote friends, family members, or coworkers in exchange for discounts or special incentives. Because most audiences believe the opinions of people they know, this may be an efficient strategy to acquire and keep more consumers.
Cold-calls
This sort of marketing is frequently used by businesses that offer their products or services to other businesses. They may conduct research on organizations that may benefit from their products and then contact them to discuss making a purchase. Using a cold-calling technique lets you engage with potential consumers in person to discuss the product you’re offering and how it can address any problems their organization is experiencing. This helps you to generate a greater personal connection and trust between your organization and potential clients.
Final Thoughts
You now understand how to locate your target markets, the distinction between a target audience and a target market, and some real-world examples of how to design a target market plan. You should be well on your approach to acquiring and retaining a devoted consumer base.
Always bear in mind that determining who your ideal consumers are is simply the first step. Once you’ve determined the age, location, gender, interests, pain points and other characteristics of your target market sample, it’s critical to focus on the communication channels that these segments may utilize.
