Target Market

Target Market: Few items are designed with the primary purpose of gaining as many customers as possible. This is because segmenting the target market makes it easier to make decisions and create targeted messaging for the customers a firm wants to please.

Companies need to find their target market for their marketing strategies to be more accurate and effective. In addition, this helps to consolidate optimal messages with which a target audience can feel identified. Therefore, we will see everything about the target market, its relevance, and how your brand can detect theirs.

What is the target market

A target market is a collection of people or consumers —identified by a company—with similar characteristics that make them potential customers for its products or services. Based on its needs, a brand makes relevant decisions for the market.

A target market can be distinct by various common qualities: age, lifestyle, preferences, location, and interests. Knowing the customers helps create messages directed only to those willing to pay for the product or service offered. It is a more successful and cheaper way to reach customers and generate profits.

Why should a target market be defined

Part of the success of marketing a product or service is knowing who it will attract and who is the majority likely to buy it. This, therefore, allows the customer base to grow and feed on marketing strategies.

It is important to appreciate that not everyone is a potential buyer of a specific product or service. Therefore, companies must clearly understand their target market from the outset. Therefore, identifying and understanding customers is essential for any brand’s business and marketing plan.

This lets them know where their consumers are, what communication channels they use, their buying habits, and how to adapt marketing messages to encourage them to buy.

Four types of the target market

There are four types of target markets from which the other subcategories that may exist are derived to define the group of people that a company will target. These are the following:

1. Demographic

The demographic target market concentrates on determining who the customer is. This segment can refer to both a B2C and a B2-B market; it is essential to make a difference to detail the qualities of these consumers correctly.

If we refer to a B2B market, the most important thing is to know the type of industry and the company’s size. To get to know a B2C market, aspects such as age, gender, lifestyle, and educational level, among others, must be investigated.

This is the most ordinary type of market, as companies use it to determine the target audience for their product or service. It is helpful because it represents one of the keys to understanding what customers need.

2. Geographic

This type of target market allows you to divide an audience by location; commonly used segments are region, country, continent, district, or city. This way of segmenting the market is handy for international companies since the location of their customers can influence their purchases.

3. Behavioral

This type of market seeks to divide the audience by their buying behaviour; it considers buying patterns, history, knowledge of the product or company, and product rating.

4. Psychographic

Unlike other ways of segmenting a market, this one tries to separate the audience by their personalities, including characteristics such as lifestyle, attitudes, interests, and values. At least one aspect must be considered to avoid losing perspective of where and to whom a company should go.

It is a bit complex to get this information because someone’s personality can be entirely subjective, but the results can be functional if it is achieved.

Four target market examples

1. Netflix

Perhaps from this first example, you might think you have a very general target market. It is not. Sure, the streaming service boasts more than  208 million users worldwide. Still, each person within that group has entirely different tastes, needs, and demographics that Netflix has to cater to and cater to separately.

If Netflix had a general target market, everyone would watch the same thing! Without the opportunity to modify it, they would all possess the same characteristics and qualities. But this is not the case since each user has different preferences; Thanks to the analysis and algorithms used, Netflix covers the individual needs of each one.

2. Lego

When talking about Lego’s target market, many people think it is boys and girls. But are they? Perhaps the little ones in the house are the ones who want to acquire all the Lego models, but they do not make the final decision. Therefore, Lego’s target market is mom and dad.

This has made Lego a very familiar brand and has managed to extend its audience. They no longer only dedicate strategies and messages to boys and girls but also to the same fathers and mothers of families who have similar tastes for collecting figures of cult characters.

That is why Lego not only responds to the needs of its children’s target market but also satisfies the tastes of the older ones, who at the same time are the decision-makers because they have the capital to acquire the products.

3. Knotfest

An annual music event also has a robust target market. Nowadays, you can find music festivals for all kinds of tastes, and the public’s preference sets the tone for the strategies to promote the events.

Several music festivals can be mentioned, but this one, in particular, has a target market that does meet all the necessary criteria to be profitable: lovers of rock/metal music, similar demographics and psychographics, need to have a common music space with bands and artists they are fans of, among others.

By having a group of people with similar tastes, the strategy can be somewhat general. Sure, not everyone will be happy with the bands included in an edition, but at least they will attend to see one or two of their interest. This makes this type of target market very profitable.

4. Vans

The footwear brand has a very well-defined it, which has built its image and personality. This brand defines and responds to the needs of a young audience; it also covers those of an even more specific market: young people who practice skateboarding.

This means that Vans may determine various strategies for its different markets but ultimately ends up meeting the lifestyle needs of the target group of people.

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