Narrowing Down Your Target Market And The Power Of A Persona

Who is your Target Market? If you’re saying “Everyone!” then this blog post is for you! (so you’re our target market, see what we did there).

Sadly, your target market is not everyone, it’s not even most people, it needs to be far more specific in order for you to really connect with the people that make up that market.

It’s that connection that will drive sales in your business.

The fact is, if your business is based on selling something (a product or a service) then the first barrier for entry is often a financial one – who can afford to buy what you’re selling. The second barrier for entry might be an accessibility one – if you’re a bricks and mortar store, people have to be with the local area or willing to travel. And that’s before we even start to talk about appeal – who would actually want to buy your product or service (i.e. who will it most likely appeal to).

This is the beauty of narrowing down who your target market is from “everyone” to a group of people that have certain characteristics, geographic location and demographics.

When we run our clients through this, we start by asking “who is your ideal customer” and whiteboard a list of attributes or habits that would typify that person.

From there you can build out a target market by matching that with what your business actually provides – what problem does your customer have that your business could solve for them.

Once you have your target market, you can then divide them into smaller groups called segments that have similarities like:

• Demographics

• Geographic Location

• Psychographic Profile

• Behaviours

• Benefits Sought.

The next step is assigning a Persona to each of those segments. A Persona is simply a demonstration of your target market – an example of someone who has the attributes of your ideal customer for each segment. For example, one persona might prefer to come into your bricks and mortar store because they are local, another might prefer to watch your videos online because they live interstate.

Tip: When you are developing your Personas, be as specific as possible – give them a name, pick a stock photo that looks like the person you’re describing, give them some personality!

If you need a hand drilling down into your target market, give us a call.