Having a general marketing strategy is an important part of building your brand and marketing your product. While these are important parts of the process, there is more to be done to increase the visibility of your product or service. In order to ensure that you are getting the best return on your investment, you have to put the time into pinpointing, and developing a marketing campaign, for a specific audience that is best for you.
Identifying your target audience is a great way to rethink your product or service, get into the eyes of your consumer, and find the perfect group to narrow your marketing strategy.
1.Define the purpose of your product: What makes your product different? What problems does it solve? When you realize what gap your product fills, you have an idea of what type of person would need this to improve their lives.
2.Analyze Your Customers: If you have already begun your business, consider utilizing a survey or database to discover the demographics or your clientele. More than likely, a pattern will emerge and you will have a better understanding of who is using your product or resource.
3.Create a Pro & Con List: Create a list of pro’s and con’s for your product or service. What are the con’s, and do they only apply to certain people? If so, those people should be pushed to the background when trying to realize your target audience.
4.Don’t Make Assumptions: When you have started to gather some information on demographics that may work for you, be sure you actually understand the characteristics of that group. Find reliable information on different age groups, genders, ethnicities, and data on trends within these audiences.
5.Define Where You Are Marketing: Find which strategies are the best way to reach our audience. As you begin to have a better idea and analyze your product, you can begin to realize what types of marketing would work best. For example, you wouldn’t create a campaign for shoes with arch support in a teen magazine.
6.Don’t Exclude: While finding a niche is important, you can’t exclude everyone who is not in your target audience. You want to market to create the best ROI, but keep your campaign open enough that you can convince people, who may not have sought out your product on their own, that it can work for them.
Take the time to know your product or service, and really get into the mindset of your perfect audience member. There are variety of tools you can use to collect and analyze data for your purposes. Use your resources to your advantage and you can find the perfect marketing campaign to boost your return and make yourself a household name!
Sources:
•http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/how-to-identify-your-target-market.html
•https://www.quicksprout.com/the-complete-guide-to-building-your-personal-brand-chapter-2/
•https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/226360
•http://www.forbes.com/sites/chuckcohn/2015/02/06/steps-to-identify-your-target-market/#654c60b932a8
•http://www.marketingdonut.co.uk/marketing/marketing-strategy/your-target-market/six-steps-to-defining-your-target-market
•http://www.inc.com/guides/2010/06/defining-your-target-market.html