Who are my Target Markets?

How to segment a market

Market segmentation involves breaking down your target markets into 3 levels:

1. Ideal Client Profile (ICP)
2. Cohorts
3. Buyer Personas

Ideal Client Profile (ICP)

Think of this as the “perfect client” description, without getting into individual personalities.

Who are your clients/customers?

Consider the following questions. If several, score for each and select the highest score.

• Who is your most profitable niche?
• Do you like dealing with them?
• Do they value your work?

Where are your clients/customers?

Consider where your ideal customers spend their time.

• What online platforms etc do they use?
• What groups do they hang out with (online or offline)?

How do you qualify them?

What is a simple way to decide if someone is your ideal client? Easy to get on a form or over the phone.

• Demographics/Firmographics
• Location
• Budget

Cohorts

Once we have our ICPs defined, we break these down into similar cohorts. A cohort is a group of people who share a common characteristic or experience within a defined ICP.

What are their needs and desires?

• What is the problem they are trying to solve?
• What specific goals, challenges, or use cases define this group?

What is their buying urgency?

• Do they buy on impulse, on a schedule, or as part of a long procurement process?

What is their decision-making process?

• Who is involved? Single decision-maker, committee, procurement team?

What is their volume/frequency?

• How often do they buy or engage with your type of offering?

Any special considerations?

• Any compliance, technical, timing, or logistical factors unique to this group?

Buyer Personas

Buyer personas are semi-fictional representations of your ideal customers. They bring your target audience to life by creating detailed profiles of individuals who embody the key characteristics, needs, and behaviours of your most valuable customers.

Think of them as characters in a story, each with a name, a face, a background, and a set of motivations. This helps you move beyond abstract data and visualise who you're trying to reach.

What is their role and/or profile?

• Job title or role (B2B)
• Personal background, responsibilities (B2C or B2B).

What are their goals and motivations?

• What outcomes are they aiming for? (personal success, cost savings, growth, efficiency, convenience, prestige)

What are their pain points?

• What frustrates them about their current situation or existing solutions?

What are their decision triggers?

• What makes them choose one provider over another? (features, reputation, price, speed, relationships)

Where do they get their information?

• Where do they research and discover options? (Google, social media, industry events, referrals)

What barriers or objections do they have?

• What could prevent them from buying? (budget, risk, trust, complexity)

What are their preferred communication channels?

• Email, phone, video calls, in-person, chat, social media

What is their buying process?

• Is it a fast decision or a multi-stage evaluation?
• Do they need trials, demos, proposals, or references?

Whilst there is an argument that breaking down your target markets to individual Buyer Personas is going overboard for small business marketing, you definitely should be breaking down your markets to the Cohort level to better understand your market and help with your service delivery and messaging.

What to do with these target markets

Now you've decided on the markets you want to target, the next steps are to really understand them to help develop your products and/or services, as well as your marketing message. There are 3 key areas that you really want to understand about each cohort:

1. The problem they have
2. Their primary pain points
3. Their desired outcomes

The problem you are solving

What exactly are your target markets' problems you are solving? These are the generic problems that your product or service can fix; for example blocked toilets, broken air conditioning, tax lodgements, stiff back etc. Be clear on the different problems they have and which ones you want fix.

The primary pain points caused by the problem

If we think of the problem as the actual issue (fact), then the pain points are the consequence (cost or hurt) of that problem. As a general rule, pain points are around time, cost, stress or risk. For example, your customer may have a blocked stormwater, but their pain points is the boggy backyard, inability to use their yard, muddy house, uncertainty around cost, damage to the house etc. If we consider our example of the "working professionals" Cohort, their pain points are taking time off work, uncertainty of how much time they need to take etc.

The desired outcome or solution

This is what the target market is wanting to fix their problem and alleviate their pain points. Continuing on with our example, they not only want their stormwater unblocked, but want to have a clear idea of cost, know it will fix their boggy backyard and be assured you will arrive when you say you will and fix the problem in an agreed timeframe.

Now you have a clear idea on your target markets' problems, pain points and desired outcomes, you can start working out how to deliver this and communicate it to them.

Still confused about target markets?

Don't worry, you're not alone. Many of the small business owners we work with, have never really thought about their target markets too deeply. Or the huge impact this has on how you should deliver your service and the message you should be putting out in the market. So why not book a FREE Strategy Session with us and we can work through it together?