Janet and I have been talking a lot about target markets of late, and it’s really got me thinking about how many businesses actually define their target market when they set out on their path to business planning and marketing.

Now of course we know that it’s important to define a target market, it’s one of the basics of any business’s marketing plan, but do business owners know just how important?

I would say that defining your target market really is the cornerstone of your business. It defines the group of people or market segment that you are going to market your product or service to. We usually define these groups by age, gender, location and socioeconomic factors, and understanding this segment is the real key to successfully promoting your product so that it appeals to this specific audience.

Now that you have your target market nutted out, you need to gain a thorough and intimate understanding of their needs, wants and what it is that drives them to making buying decisions. How are you the solution to their problem at hand? The greater understanding you have for your target market and how your product or service can be the solution to their problem, the greater influence you will have on their decision making process, which in turn increases the success of your business.

So why would you only want to channel your business marketing efforts to one segment of the community, I hear you ask? Well you can’t be everything to everyone, and trying to be will often leave your marketing efforts disjointed and too general to be picked up by any one market segment. You would rather appeal to a niche market than to no one right!?

If you feel your product or service has two or more very specific target markets, you might need to consider individual marketing efforts to ensure you appeal to each and every one of these segments. And it’s important to remember that you will need to give each segment the same understanding to gain the knowledge you will need to market to them individually.

Once you have thought about who your product or service appeals to the most, and thus defined your target market, you will find you have more clarity on the growth direction of your business and you will find marketing ideas come more freely. You are able to gain an understanding of where these people are during certain times of the day, how much radio they listen to or how much television they watch, what they do for fun, how they spend their Christmas bonus, what they value the most and who they listen to for advice. And these are all key factors in determining the success of any marketing champaign.

Spend your marketing budget wisely by firstly defining your target market and knowing how it is that your business appeals to them. Should you need any assistance defining your target marketing or strategising your marketing efforts to target them, give the RUBIO team a call today, we’d love to help you!