How to define your target market

What is a target market anyhow? A target market is defined as " a set of buyers sharing common needs or characteristics the your company plans to serve ". Before a company can define its target markets it must first evaluate market segments and choose which market segments it plans to serve. Again, a target market is a a set of buyers sharing common needs or characteristics the your company plans to serve.

Because realistically every potential customer has different needs, your company would ideally want to target each customer individually. Unfortunately this is not very cost effective. For that simple reason businesses employ target marketing and market segmentation.

Your target market can be as small as men aged 45-50, who live the same small community (ie.Yaletown), who are professions earning 60,000+ per year with an active involvement in skiing. Or as broad as men in Canada.

Choosing you target market can sometimes prove quite difficult. It does require some research and some careful planning, if to be done right. Sometimes you will find businesses who simply, off the top of their head say, ok well for our target market - lets say 'small businesses in downtown Vancouver'. This really isn't enough, especially if you want your business to succeed.

Your target market needs to be very specific. Using the example above, you would want to make a list of the types of businesses in downtown Vancouver. Then research those businesses to see what the average income is or if they are profitable or have the disposable income to be able to afford your product/service. You would also would also specify if it will be only brick and mortar business or if you would also target ebusinesses. Obviously do some research and keep in mind the more you know about your target market the easier it is to create a marketing plan to attract them.

Some things you should thing about when defining your target market: (This is just a start, you should include as much detail as possible.)

:: education level
:: age
:: sex
:: area of residence
:: income level
:: pastimes
:: interests
:: do they have children ?
:: do they have pets
:: ETC.