Defining your target market

Knowing your target market can help to differentiate your business from competition, tailor your marketing efforts to better meet customer needs and potentially boost sales.

A broad target market that tries to appeal to “everybody” can easily get lost amongst the crowd.

Demographics alone, such as age, gender, income and occupation, do not provide enough insight into the attributes of your target customer.

When constructing a target market profile, narrow down your typical customer with consideration to geographic, psychographic, and behavioural characteristics to develop a clear and specific vision of your target market.

Geographics
Segmenting your target customer through geographics involves considering what continent, country, city or town they may live in, the size of the area, the climate and if they live in specific neighborhoods.

Psychographics
Categorising your target market through psychographics, uses personality and interests to define your target customer. Psychographics analyses variables such as lifestyle, attitude, values, personality traits, social class, activities and opinions.

Behavioural
Behavioural segmentation involves your target customer’s behaviour towards your products or services. It can include the benefits sought, how often they will use your product or service, their loyalty to your brand, their readiness to buy your products/services, or if your products/services are used for a specific occasion such as a holiday or an event.