Target Market: How to Identify It according to Your Business

Let's define the target market: This is the specific group of people you want to reach with your sales and marketing message. 

They are the people who are most likely to buy your products or services, and are united by some common characteristics, such as demographics and behaviours. 

In addition, by implementing a marketing strategy to a particular target group, you create a kind of need, desire or interest in your company. This is not only for startups, but also for large corporations that currently invest their money to implement perfect advertising campaigns. 

Keep in mind that when you advertise, always think about your ideal customer. You may have a product that appeals to many ages, but it is still important to really understand your target market. 

For example, we think of a target group for shampoo use. Everyone uses this, of course, but we have to keep in mind that people buy it for different reasons. Some have brittle hair, some have oily hair, some have dry hair, or are sensitive with their scalp. 

These are details that you have to understand when offering your product or service.

Identify your target market.

There are plenty of questions that will help you identify your target group, however, it is very important to choose criteria that you can test outside of your business in order to qualify your leads faster, and focus your efforts on a smaller number of qualified contacts. 

Here are some questions you can ask yourself:

• What is the type of target company my clients need?
• What is the size of the target company?
• Where are they located?
• Who is the decision-maker for purchasing products like mine in the target companies?
• What industry are they in?

Let's answer each question together: in the first question, answer clearly"what kind of company could benefit from my value? 

Your target company type could be as simple as "financial services companies", or "product companies founded more than a year ago that use e.g. a CRM or Shopify". 

Try not to be too specific, because at some point you will notice that there are only a few companies that meet your "company type" criteria. And this is only the first part of defining your target market. 

Focus on the most important aspects of what might make a company need your solution. In answer to the second question, here depending on the size and structure of the company, it encompasses different decision makers. In companies with 1 to 10 employees, the CEOs and founders are the decision makers, but in companies with more than 500 employees, there may be different people who are decisive for the purchasing process. 

Answering the third question, location is not just about the place on a map. It is about the corporate culture of the company you are targeting. For example, it does not make much sense to approach some countries with a marketing campaign if you are working from abroad, as they prefer to work with partners within their borders. 

Start with markets where you are already present, or nearby, where you can find common ground. And when you are ready to move on, look for larger regions or countries that you can approach. In the fourth question, answer the type of decision -maker by targeting your solution to their criteria and needs. 

Furthermore, analyse who in your business makes the decision to buy products like yours. And finally, industry is a more general term, for example: are your customers in the financial sector, in innovative technologies, or perhaps on the other side of the market, in the restaurant or hospitality sector? 

Here look for a target group where 8 out of 10 companies look like potential customers, however, start with small groups as this way you can quickly master small markets and gain ground and knowledge about them quickly. 

Some questions you can ask in this part are:

• Are they backed by Business Angel?
• When was the company founded?
• What technology are they using?
• What is the estimated traffic to your website?
• How high is the industry margin level?

This allows you to get an idea of how your target market is doing, thus enabling you to reach out and establish interesting relationships, for example:

• CEO's of high margin venture capital companies,
• Sales directors of companies with more than 50 employees,
• E-commerce shops with traffic exceeding 100,000 visits per month,
• Marketing managers of companies, etc.

Each aspect of a customer profile is as important as the others. That is why it is key that you choose and analyse each target group you want to reach, so that you can achieve great benefits later on.

Define your target audience now.

Don't assume that you know your target audience without doing your research first. This is the best way to find out who you are selling to and create the perfect message for each audience to whom you can market the same product. 

Finding your target audience is a key part of any marketing segmentation strategy. 

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