The target market is the specific group of potential customers or readers for your products or services. That may seem obvious, but scratch your target market and you may discover it has an assortment of unique market segments within.
For instance, I want to invite interest or sales in my product(s) or service(s). I make a nice website with company and product information and pictures of products, and I post content and pictures of the products on Google My Business, Instagram, Facebook, and videos on TikTok, etc. I might also be posting on LinkedIn, Reddit, and other social channels. I create mass email campaigns, populating them with all the addresses I can gather now and going forward (legitimately). I may also create a Google pay-per-click ad campaign, Facebook/Instagram ad campaigns, or YouTube videos and shorts ads.
Ask Yourself the Following:
- Are my products or services a mass consumer item? Are they something that generally everybody may need or want? Everybody meaning all ages, male and female, and across the country (we’ll just limit this to the United States), or is my target market really a smaller subset or segment of the larger market?
- Are my products or services more commonly used by a more narrowly defined market segment? If so, have I validated the attributes of the markets that may be defined?
- Do I have enough financial resources (and time)? – it takes time and money to market to all or just some of these segment channels (and others) at the same time.
It is guaranteed that your product or service is not necessary for 100% of the country’s population. You may think it is, but in reality, it is not. It is just of interest to a portion of the whole. Figuring out who and what makes up that portion is the challenging and ongoing part of targeting the right customers.
Experimentation Helps
Gut feeling? You may think you know who your potential customers are and what they want—prove it and test the markets. Unless you have the resources to experiment broadly, trial efforts between and within channels. Compare similar costs (or time) between one platform and another. Make adjustments and evaluate. Also keep in mind the costs associated with setup, management, discovery, and analysis.
Consider the full opportunity costs of your campaign efforts
- Setup
- Management
- Optimization
- Analysis
- Budget realistically
Do not underbudget. Expecting results from a $500-a-month ad campaign for med-mal attorneys in Philadelphia may give you a couple of hours or less of visibility. Successful results would be equivalent to the odds associated with trying to pick a winning lottery number. Budget appropriately for the target market.
Product Differentiation Must Be Reinforced
Why is your product or service better than the competitors? Identify and explain why your product or service is different. Reinforce with messaging and visual displays of the differentiation. There should be continuity of messaging throughout the strategy.
You can certainly overthink this, but you must give some pause and thought to a strategy before excessively consuming time and money from a shallow well.
Hit your target markets with rifle shots and limit the shotgun approach unless you have a lot of ammunition.
This article touches on some very simple and limited concepts of marketing to the right person(s). Work to identify your markets prior to spending time and energy. Plan on evaluations and adjustments over the short and long term. Validate gut feelings.
Many clients work with agencies such as Gatman Media Services to help evaluate these economic considerations and determine the most efficient allocation of resources for their digital initiatives. Contact us by email or call us at +1 954-761-8273