Who are my Target Markets?

Why should I know my Target Markets?

Are you like a lot of small businesses and never really sat down and clarified exactly who your target markets are? Sure, you may have a generic idea, like "I target residential, commercial, homeowners etc", but have you broken this down any further? Now you're asking yourself "why do I need to define my market any further and how does that help me grow my sales?". The short answer is; that it not only helps you decide the best marketing channels to use and what your messaging should be, but also how you should be delivering your service. Let us explain why your target market is so important in growing your sales and how you go about defining it.

How target markets define your service delivery

Before we even look at target markets for your marketing, we need to see how it should impact the way you deliver your service. The best way to explain this is with an example; so let's consider a trade business targeting "Homeowners" and break them down into 2 different cohorts:

1. Stay at Home Mums
2. Working Professionals

Now both cohorts will have similar problems that need fixing, such as a broken air conditioner that needs to be repaired as soon a possible, but what about problems, desires and needs for each cohort?

1. Stay at Home Mums

This cohort has a lot of time available during business hours to arrange access to the house, however, they may want to schedule it around nap and meal times etc. As they may be home with small children, they may also feel uncomfortable about having a stranger in their house. Now consider if this was your target market, could you maybe offer flexible scheduling times to work around naps and ensure your staff all have "Working with Children" cards, and a photo of them is sent before they arrive?

2. Working Professionals

This cohort needs to take take time off work during business hours to arrange access to the house. So they need to know that you will turn up on time and be able to fix the problem as quickly as possible. How do you ensure you provide this service? Could you maybe offer a before or after work timeslot?

How target markets define your marketing message

Using the example above, we can see how we shape our service delivery to better meet our target markets' needs and desires; but how do we ensure our market knows this? Aside from ensuring we mention this on our website and ads etc, we could also consider guarantees and offers. 

How target markets help decide our marketing channels

Continuing with our example, are stay at home mums more likely to be scrolling through social media then working professionals? Are working professionals on LinkedIn more? Are working professionals more likely to use Google to quickly search for a tradie, whereas stay at home mums will look for referrals?

a

a

a