Knowing your target market will not only improve your chances of excelling in your business, but it will also minimize cost. You need to understand that not everyone wants to buy what you are selling, so you must know those who are interested. It is highly impossible to have a successful startup business when you don’t know your target market. How can you succeed when you have no idea who needs what you are selling? This is the first step that you need to initiate before launching a new startup or business.
It is easier said than done for most entrepreneurs to identify their target audience. If you have no target audience, then be prepared to spend huge in your marketing campaigns. When you market to everyone and anyone without a clear target, it becomes a waste of effort, time, and money. You need to focus your time, effort, and money marketing to the specific group of people who genuinely have a need or interest in your products and services. If you fail with your marketing campaigns, then your startup is definitely going to bleed money
A report published by CBINSIGHTS showed that 42% of startups fail because there was no market for them. It means that these startups have a product but there wasn’t anyone to tell. You can see why it is very important to identify your target market before launching your startup or business. If you find that there isn’t any market for product and service, then you need to go back to the drawing board. According to this same report, 29% of startups fail because they ran out of cash.
When you spend a huge marketing budget on the product, you will definitely fail in business.
Tips On How To Identify Your Target Market
Now, let us consider the various ways which you can use to identify your target in the market as a new entrant in business. These are the important things that will help you carry out a wholesome target analysis. There are different target marketing strategies. The tips include the following:
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Have a broader assumption and then slowly narrow your focus
To identify your target market in business, you need to spread your net wide and then narrow down your options. Start with those groups that you assume may be interested in your products and services. You can then narrow these options down to more specific groups. You can start segments such as gender, age, location, occupation, etc. By using the groups listed above, you can eliminate those who are outside your target market.
For instance, if your startup is into the production of female wears, then you have no business including the male folks in your target market. So, you automatically eliminate men from your list, but please don’t get me wrong here. I am not saying that men can’t buy these products; they make a purchase as gifts for their wives, friends, or girlfriends. That doesn’t mean you should add them to your target audience.
You could consider age as it is possible that girls below the age of 15 wouldn’t be buying these products as well those at the age of 60 years too. These are ways to structure and identify your target market so you would waste the marketing budget on the wrong group.
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Carry out a critical analysis of your competition
It is often very rare for you to come up with a product or service that is not already in existence. Even though your idea is unique, your startup or business will still be part of an existing industry. You need to have it at the back of your mind that other people are already doing what you are doing. It is important to analyze your competition so that you can know how to position your business in your industry.
To achieve this, you have got to study your competition and understand what they are already doing what needs to be done differently. First, you identify the target market for your competition. You can visit your competition’s website, study their advertisements, and if possible join their email subscription list. From your analysis, you can still go after the same target market as your competition or you can decide to go after a different target that they are overlooking.
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Engage the consumers to know their thought
Consumer engagement is one of the best target marketing strategies that you can adopt before the launch of your startup or business. To identify your target mart, you need to put in much work so that you don’t launch a product that will be part of the 42% that fail due to the absence of an available market. Make out time to discuss with the consumers to know what they really need. No matter how great your product and services are, if they don’t appeal to the consumers, then you have failed.
You need to understand your potential consumer behavior. That is the only way to stand a chance in the market with your new product. You can print questionnaires to be distributed among your potential consumers to know what they think about your product before you launch into the market.
Conclusion
Identifying your ideal target market is essential to the success of your startup or business. You must ensure that you don’t launch blindly simply because you think your product is great. If the consumers don’t see your product as great, then they are not great. The consumers have the final say, hence the reason you need to do it the way that will interest them. Your products and services are not to please you; rather it is to please your consumers.
You can also drop your contributions are questions in the comment section as I am eager to learn too.