Target Marketing

One of my favorite topics with regard to small businesses is target marketing. Target marketing is concentrating your efforts toward the group of people or businesses that will bring you the most revenue. It is the bull's eye at which you aim your marketing efforts. The reason that this is one of my favorite topics, is that so many small business owners have the mindset that everyone is a potential customer, so that is who the target is -- everyone. For example, if I were to ask someone who owns a retail hat store who their target market is, it is not uncommon for me to receive the answer “well I sell hats, so anyone with a head.” While it is true that everyone could be a customer, it is highly unlikely that your customer breakdown will include an even amount of every type of person or business that is out there. It is probably true that 20% of the people or businesses that bring you 80% of your revenue have very common characteristics, such as demographics (personal information such as age, income, occupation, married or single, etc.), psychographics (purchasing preferences and interests such as personality, values, attitudes, interests, or lifestyles) and geographic (location such as home address, business address, etc.) location.

Once you have identified who your target market is, then you can design a specific marketing message catered to that group with similar characteristics.

Let’s say you know your target market is 15 to 25 year-old men who like country music, are frequent hat buyers, and live in rural areas. You can create an advertising message to appeal to those types of buyers. Additionally, you could buy spots in a newspaper or a magazine that appeals to this type of buyer, rather than use advertising that tries to be all things to all people.