In digital marketing, if you try to reach everyone, you’ll experience a difficult time reaching anyone. Generic and vague messages tailored to appeal to the broadest sense of a market are less likely to resonate with audiences than direct communication — which is why targeting a specific market matters.

Instead of trying to reach an entire market, businesses use target marketing to connect with a defined group within a specific industry. This strategy determines a segment of consumers based on their unique qualities and focuses solely on serving them.

How Can You Benefit from Targeted Marketing?

A clear vision of your expected consumer base increases your brand’s chances of success. With it, you can:

• Tweak business ideas to meet the needs of your potential customers better

• Determine the demand for your services or products

• Target all marketing efforts to more promising prospects

• Craft marketing messages with the right language, tone, and attitude to appeal to your best prospects

Some entrepreneurs resist the idea of target market analysis, thinking it will limit their business’ potential. This is a misconception. Identifying your target audience will not prevent the business from accepting customers outside the target profile. If these customers wish to buy your products, you will still be available.

Also, determining your customer base increases cost efficiency. Unless you have unlimited resources, it’s more effective to direct your marketing efforts to consumers who will most likely buy your products or services.

Target audience analysis can be tedious when you go about it without a plan. When you plot out your steps, however, it can be a straightforward process.

Identifying the Market: Step by Step

Pinpoint Problems and Needs

The first step to determining your target market is to put yourself in your potential customers’ shoes. Start with your products and services: what kind of problems can these solve? It’s important to be very specific when considering this part. Will your customers require 24-hour customer support? What daily activities do they perform and how can you make it easier for them?

Once you have the answers to these, start working out who is most likely to experience these needs or concerns.

Create a Customer Profile

Defining your consumer base involves identifying specific qualities of people or businesses likely to purchase from you. Marketers compile these characteristics to create a demographic profile. Common qualities included in the profile are:

• Age

• Gender

• Marital status

• Occupation or industry

• Income level and buying habits

• Geographic location and ethnic group

• Political or religious affiliations or learnings

Keep in mind that every customer, business, and industry is different. This list of characteristics need not be the only standard. Consider it as a starting point to evaluate consumer base sizes and opportunities.

Do not hesitate to make adjustments and include criteria to add an interesting touch to your profiles. Remember: the better you know your consumers, the better you can sell to them.

Apply a Funnel Approach

Think of the target market selection as a multiple staged funnel. For example, start the selection by focusing on gender. If your products or services are gender-specific, it is easier to narrow down your audience.

Age can be your second filter. Ask yourself or assemble a focus group: what age range does your product cater to? Consider your product’s appeal to both older and younger audiences, too. It will help you determine which age group to focus on. You can then cap off your funnel approach by studying the potential market’s income level.

As you progress through these successive filters, you will arrive at a more focused target audience. Feel free to experiment with a combination of filters or the order of sieves to see different results.

Observe the Competition

Another way to define your target market is by observing your competitors’ marketing tactics. Identify their best selling products and services and scroll through their business website and social media feeds. It also helps to learn about the audience they are targeting: Who are they? Do they fit your business’ demographics?

If their audience fits your demographics, you can learn a thing or two about your target consumers. If it doesn’t, this will be a great opportunity to find out how to further distinguish your brand from theirs.

Don’t Forget the Niche Markets

“Niche market” refers to a specialized market. They are subgroups that can be found within a target audience. An example of this is a law firm with a practice area of bankruptcy, or a maternity clothing shop that offers only summer dresses. In a crowded marketplace, a niche can set you apart from the competition.

While all businesses need a target audience, not everyone requires a niche market. Still, it pays to invest in this type of marketing too, especially if you are tired of competing with the “big names.”

Focusing on a niche market is a profitable strategy. You can concentrate on an area not yet saturated by other businesses. Think of niche markets as hooks that reel in potential customers before the competition does.

There are two types of niches:

• Customer niche. The business focuses on profitable customer bases. Instead of prioritizing customized products and services, they pour all marketing efforts to serving specific audiences.

• Operational niche. This approach is the opposite of a customer niche. It emphasizes the features of the business’ specialized products and services, appealing to a small segment of customers.

Niche markets are narrow, but not so narrow they do not guarantee enough customers to sustain the business. The key to determining a profitable niche is to find an area with an unmet demand and fill its needs with your products and services.

Target marketing serves both brands and consumers. It improves the former’s marketing strategies and builds brand awareness and loyalty. It may also result in better products and services. But most importantly, it establishes a better experience for audiences, which entices them to trust a brand.

Understand and connect with your target audience so that you can make the most out of your time and theirs.

Are you unsure about your first step? Aspire Digital Marketing is eager to help. Our team of digital marketers can assist with your target marketing efforts, as well as with your other digital marketing concerns. Get in touch with us today to learn more.