Defining Your Target Market – An Essential Business Growth Strategy

Marketing Articles | October 7, 2006

Who is your Target Market? Do you know? Does it matter?

Many people jump into business without thinking about where they will get their customers. Certain companies – restaurants and movie theaters, for example – have wide demographics. At some point, everyone will eat out or see a movie. But most of the rest of us need to determine which segment of the population can best benefit from our services.

If you’re just starting out, you may not have a clear picture of your Target Market. You just want business – any business. But if you specialize “ find your niche,” as they say, you’re more apt to develop a marketing strategy able to reach your ideal client and bring him to your door.

But who is she?

Think of it like putting an advertisement in the personals. You’re seeking your perfect match – the one you look forward to growing old with. For days, you wrestle with just the right words to describe yourself and the one you hope to meet. Finally, you have it just the way you want it. You send it off to the paper and days later you’re inundated with calls.

Finding your ideal client works much the same way. Before you ever sat down to write your profile, you deliberated. You catalogued your qualities and those you sough in a mate. When defining your Target Market you should adopt a similar process.

So what are the criteria?

Here’s a list of ways to identify your Target Market from, Get Clients Now!, by C.J. Hayden:

Who needs your service the most?
Who is able to pay what you need to charge?
Who is likely to give you large orders or repeat business?
Whose problems and goals do you care about?
Who would be the most fun and satisfying to work with?
Where do you already have contacts?
Who would be the easiest clients to get?

Once you have an idea of whom you want to pursue, many of the other pieces will fall into place. Knowing your Target Market (or ideal client) will help you produce the kind of promotional materials that will always hit their intended objective.

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