How Do You Find Your Target Market?

What is a Target Market?

Your target market is the people most likely to be your customers, the people you will be providing your products or services to. Think about the kind of people who will be using your business. A high-end furniture store is not likely to be marketing to uni students, but instead wealthier clients. A trade or timber shop is going to be marketing to tradies and builders instead of middle-aged women or children. 

Identifying Your Target Market

So, how do you now identify our own target market? First, you ask yourself the kind of customers that you actually want. When you started this business what were you trying to achieve? What are the values of your business? Once you’ve answered these questions you might have an idea of the customers you feel passionate about marketing to (or avoiding) rather than simply trying to match your own company to the customer base most likely to give you money.

If you hold values of environmental consciousness, for example, you’re probably not going to be marketing to oil or coal companies. But you can use messages of environmentalism in your marketing, and incorporate green initiatives into your business, to attract customers that hold the same values.

Use Analytics

Websites like Google and Facebook have built in analytics that you can use to find out specific information on your customers (read more about analytics here). What percentage of them are a certain age, gender or nationality. You can use this to  look at the customers you already have. You might be surprised to find an overwhelming number of them belong to a certain demographic. You might find that your brand is popular among suburban mothers or foreign businessmen. After learning this it might be a good idea to double down and pivot towards this market with which you are finding success.

Find Your Niche

The term niche refers to ‘a specialized segment of the market for a product or service.’ Niching can be a daunting task as you might feel as though you’re cutting yourself off from the larger market. But if you have a chance to cater to a niche audience you might find yourself becoming the go-to brand.

For example, there is an online store called Lefty’s that sells exclusively left-handed products such as left-handed pens, kitchenware, even guitars. Less than 10% of the population is left-handed, making it a smaller demographic than right-handers but you better believe those left-handers are going to be shopping at Lefty’s as often as they can.

If you find a viable niche for your business, you could honestly become the biggest company in the world for that specific audience.