When I ask many small businesses who their target market is, 80% of them give one of three answers: 

“Everyone who uses my [product/service]”

“Everyone who needs my [product/service]”

“Everyone who wants my [product/service]”

The problem with “EVERYONE” when it comes to marketing is that by defining your target market this way, you are effectively saying that your product/service appeals to no one in particular.

It turns out that if we reframe the question into “Who does your product/service appeal to most?” then we actually get a more accurate description of the target audience.

One of the traps that many businesses fall into is that they think if they define their target market too narrow, then they will miss out on leads and sales.

However, a clearly defined target market doesn’t mean that you don’t have customers that fall outside this market, but these are the clients that generate the most revenue for you.

So how do you define your target market? Have a think about these four key components:

• Demographics (Age, Gender, Income Level, Family Scenario, Education)
• Geographic (Location)
• Behavioural
• Psychographic

You don’t have to have answers to all of these, but these elements help you to group your potential buyers into groups with similar characteristics (target markets) and will allow you to put in place a strategy to attract these people.

Also, you can have more than one target market.

For example:

A Physiotherapy Clinic might define their target market broadly as:

People aged 21-60 who live within an 8-minute radius of their clinic and have an active lifestyle with a slight skew toward Females.

A Yoga Studio might define their target market as: 

Females aged 22-50 who live within a 15-minute radius of the studio and keep up with current healthy lifestyle trends.

Marketing to everyone costs a lot of money. Spending your resources marketing to people that aren’t interested in your product/service in the first place doesn’t make financial sense. 

You need to really define which potential customers are going to generate the most revenue for you and spend your marketing $$ on attracting those customers.

It is about deciding where to invest your marketing dollars to get the maximum results.

If you’d like help to determine who your target market is and how to effectively reach them with an integrated marketing plan, contact us today for a FREE 30 min chat