No one wants to start a fight without knowing who they are going to fight with; no one wants to start a journey without knowing their destination. That’s basically the same with launching a business. It’s not enough that you know the aspects of your industry and that you have the funds to begin producing your products and services. There’s another element that you need to consider to make your business a success – and that is knowing your target market.
If you think that identifying your target market is all you need to do, you’re wrong. Sure, clearly identifying who you want to sell your business to can greatly help in creating a business and development plan to ensure that you can supply what your consumers demand. But, knowing your customers further makes it easier for you to create an effective marketing strategy that will make your products sell. What does that mean? Let’s put it this way:
If you know who you want to sell your products to, you would know how to craft your product. Let’s say you are putting up a clothing shop and your target market are the millennials or the young professionals. Of course, you would immediately know what types of clothes they want to wear so that’s what you’re going to sell them. From the most latest fashion trend up to those that are about to be in style, you have to make sure that you have all of it in stock so your customers will not be disappointed when they look at your shelves. But is it enough that you have a shop full of stacked designer clothes? If you’re going to ask us, it’s not.
The supply and demand theory may be correct in terms of keeping the business alive, but if you want to succeed and dominate the market, you have to create a better strategy. That’s where advertising and marketing strategies come in handy. More than just knowing who your target market is, you should also know what type of people they are– their lifestyle, behaviour, everything. You have to get their attention. And what’s the best way to get their attention? You need to know what triggers their interest and spark their buying impulse.
Going back to the example above, yes it’s easy to put a shop or an online store with lots of enticing products for them, but you have to know how to capture their attention amidst all other businesses same as yours. Through targeted marketing, you can promote your brand, your product and services to the audience based on their behavior and characteristics. You have to know what they like, where they go, what they eat, who they admire, and how they think. Basically, you have to put yourself in their shoes and design your entire marketing strategy based on those information.
Let’s start with your brand name and logo. Using the example above, how would you name your company that every millennial or young professional would be able to relate? Same goes with the theme of the store and your website, how is it going to look like to make sure that the kids of today will even consider going in your stores. Through proper market research and case studies, you can get to know your target market on a deeper level – and a little bit of browsing through social media feeds can help too.
From the information that you will gather, you can build and create a demographic information which can help you create effective marketing strategies for your company. You can come up with more relatable marketing campaigns that can entice your audience and trigger their interest to purchase your product.
But, why do you really need it? Why you do need to study the behavior of your target market? Aside from increasing your sales, how does it help your business and your brand? Why do you need to get to know your market? Well, here are some of the reasons:
1. You can be more specific in your messages
As mentioned above, if you know who you’re dealing with, it will be easier for you to communicate with them. Using the example earlier, knowing that you are campaigning to the millennial market already gives you an edge in the business. You can study their language and their lifestyle and your marketing tactics will always be effective, with a lesser chance of failing.
2. You can reach the potential customers
If you know who they are, then you can easily know why you can’t get them. From that knowledge, you can further reach to your target market that’s not even batting an eye on you. Just a tip of advice, people of the same demographics you do not always have the same interests, but if you know more information about them then maybe you can also give what they think they don’t know.
3. Your company has a character
It adds to the strength of your brand if you have a focused consumer. Your brand will be stronger and your recall will be more established. You can create a character for your own brand. Okay, think of a sports brand that empowers athlete to just want their heart desires and success will follow. Do you also have the same thought as us? Yes, it’s Nike. Since they expanded their knowledge about athletes, more than just sports, they were able to create a campaign that targets not just the athletes but also all sports enthusiasts – and basically everyone else who is determined to push through with their dreams, which is almost everyone.
4. You don’t need to go through trial and error
You can stop wasting money playing around with marketing campaigns. It will be easier for you to create a budget allocation for marketing and advertising campaigns because you already know how and to whom you are going to launch it. You can reduce the need to try one strategy after another until you hit the right spot. With a defined target market, you’ll already know where to hit first.
5. You can compete with other companies
Surely you are not the only one in your industry with the same target market, right? So, if you know more about your target market, you already have an edge against your competition. More than that, you can also use your knowledge about your target market as a leverage to create better products and services than your competitors. In that way, your consumers would choose you over the others.
Consumers Are More Than Just Numbers
Getting to know your target market deeper can strengthen your brand’s message and can help you gather more customers along the way. And as a result, you’re sure to have a stronger brand and an even stronger company. So, contrary to what many businessmen may believe, your consumers are not just an equivalent of your income in terms of their importance. They are not just numbers on your calculating machines. Your consumers are as important as your brand. They are the ones who complete your business; they are the ones who make the business possible. And most importantly, they are people and you have to treat them like one.
