How to Identify Your Target Market

How to Identify Your Target Market

If you try to market your products to everyone, your message will fall on deaf ears. But, if you learn how to identify your target market, learn what they need and what motivates them, you can target them with amazing efficiency.

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Stop trying to market your products to everyone. Instead, ask yourself these five questions, and you'll save time, money, and energy.

target market your product

When you understand your target market, and you know who your ideal customers are clients are, you can sell to them much more effectively.

But I'm not going to convince you that if you're trying to reach everyone you'll end up connecting with no one. You should know that by now. I made that mistake for years before I learned what I want to share with you today.

5 Questions to Help You Identify Your Target Market

Q1: Who Are My Target Customers?

Before you get started, you should click here and download my Ideal Avatar Worksheet. It is one of the best resources I could share with you, and one of the best tools you could use before you launch any new product or service.

This first question might seem obvious, but the more you know about your target market, the better you can, well, target them. When you know who your target customer is, you can put ads in their Facebook news feed, target their searches on Google, and even create content to help them find what they need.

As you think about your target customer, think about their age, income, education, gender, hobbies, and geographic location. And that's just for starters.

The Ideal Avatar Worksheet will walk you through the process of identifying where they shop, what they buy, how much they typically spend on products comparable to yours, and much more.

Q2: What Do They Struggle With?

Studies show that people are often more willing to spend money to eliminate pain than they are to spend money on things that give them pleasure.

For example, instead of buying a new PlayStation 4 Pro, I replaced a broken window.

When you know what your target customers struggle with, you know what they need. And, when you know what they need, you have a starting point for what products or services to create in your business.

Or, if you've already got a product or service but are trying to figure out upsells or how to increase a client's value for your business, knowing what your target market still struggles with will help you determine what to make next.

Q3: How Am I Able to Help My Target Market?

When I decided to outsource my lawn mowing duties, I started looking for companies who serviced my neighborhood. I found dozens of options.

Ask yourself how you're able to help. Ask yourself what makes you unique. Ask yourself how you're better than the competition, or what give you a competitive advantage.

Q4: Why Does My Target Market Choose to Shop Elsewhere?

I'm not suggesting that you should copy your competitors, but studying them is wise. No company has 100% market share, mind share, or even 100% share of wallet (the amount a customer spends with you out of the total they have to spend).

The fact of the matter is, your target customers are buying something from someone else. If you can understand why they shop elsewhere, regardless of whether they purchase from the other company or not, you'll be able to market your message more effectively.

Figure out why they shop around and what they look for.

Are they looking for a lower cost? Do they require a faster speed of delivery? Do they want or need more options? Do you have complicated purchasing process they don't want to deal with any longer?

If you don't think your customers and clients are shopping around, you're naïve. Don't be naïve =)

Q5: Who is NOT My Target Market?

One of the best things to know about your target market and your target customers is who they're not.

I made this mistake a lot. I tried to figure out how I could fit everyone into my target market instead of trying to figure out who I shouldn't waste my time with. When you know who is and isn't part of your target market, you can spend less time on advertising to the wrong people, and more time investing in people who already know the quality you provide.

For example, when we order pizza, we know there's only one Dominos location that will deliver to our home. If all of the pizza places were trying to market to me but only one could service me, all of the others would be wasting their money and energy.

Summary

One of the best things I did in my business was to eliminate people from my list of target customers. After I learned what they needed and what they didn't, I knew what to include in my marketing efforts and what to eliminate.

When you invest the time and energy to identify your target market, you can save the time and money you'd waste advertising to people who wouldn't buy from you anyway.

Question: Have you created an avatar for your business, products, or services?

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  • Jon Stolpe says:

    I did create an avatar right about the time I joined your mastermind group. As time as gone along, the avatar has been confirmed.

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