Creating a product is one step to a successful business, and identifying who you are creating it for will enable you to promote the product to its full potential

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There is no product without a customer. There is no film without a viewer. The creators exist only as long as they have a sufficient customer base to create for. Creating a product is one step to a successful business. However, identifying who you are creating it for will enable you to promote the product to its full potential. This is where market analysis comes in, a complex process that will maximize your company’s efficiency.

What is a Target Audience?

Before trying to identify your target audience, you need to understand what it is. A target audience, also known as the target group, is a group of potential customers or users, interested in a type of product or service you are offering and likely to make a purchase if approached.

Think of it this way. You are creating a Disney cartoon. The potential target audience for your cartoon would be kids from 5 to 12 years old, as well as potentially teenagers. Adults and others are still your possible audience. However you are not catering your film to them, you are creating it for the kids.

The more niche your service or product is, the harder it is to identify your target group as the interests and accessibility of it narrows down. A film is something that has a broad market and allows variety in the audience, when massage chairs, for example, have a narrower market and target only very specific people.

Types

There are two types of business services. Business to business and business to customer. Both require a market research in order to understand who you are selling your goods to. Business to business is slightly easier when it comes to targeting the audience because all the information you require can be easily outsourced. Another thing about business to business model is that your buyers require your services for a functionality of their companies.

When it comes to business to customer model, your market research becomes slightly more complicated. Your audiences are heavily influenced by social standards, market shifts, prices, etc. Constant informational progression will affect their behavior and interest in your product. Business to customer model requires constant monitoring of outside sources that can impact buyers ability to make a purchase such as trends, politics, and so on.

Why is Target Audience Important?

Now let’s talk importance. Why is it so crucial for any business to know its target audience. Say you were given a task to create a hat, would it be easier if you knew who you are creating it for rather than creating a general one and hoping someone is going to like it. Not only knowing your market is going to increase your profit, but also make the creation and selling process easier.

Increase of Profits

Firstly, by knowing your market, you can understand how and where to spend your money. If you know that you are targeting, for example, a younger population then you will invest in your online selling capability.

Your buyers have different tendencies and requests that are unique to them. You can integrate that into your business, creating a comforting environment for them. Also understanding the market’s preference when it comes to your product or service attracts new customers that have not been available to you earlier.

Another way to increase your profits would be cutting losses. By identifying your customer base and learning about their habits, you can understand which aspects of your product/service are least interesting and profitable to them. This way you can stop its production and focus your attention and more requested items.

Product Catering

As mentioned before, it is way easier to create something if you are given a detailed request for it. Market and audience analysis allow you to design an in-depth portrait of an item/service that your customers require. Then a basic item right away transfers into a specific one, meeting the customers where they stand.

There are plenty of ways to cater your goods to the buyers. However, you need to inform them first about your product. The advertisement is a massive part of business models and requires a lot of attention. Knowing your customer base will allow you to use advertising methods they are most likely to be affected by. For example, it’s less likely that 18-year-olds are going to be exposed to ads provided in newspapers, as well ass, 60+ are not going to spend their time surfing the web.

Establishing the price for a specific product is also very important. Unless you are catering your goods to a very broad target group, you will have to establish a reasonable price based on your customer’s financial condition. Understanding yearly profit of your buyers will help you understand if they are going to be able to afford your product at the established price. From there, you will be able to see if you require a decrease in the price and how to adjust your business model to meet the customer’s position.

How to Identify Your Target Audience?

Performing target audience identification will require multiple consecutive steps. You need to clearly state what kind of goods and service you are providing in order to create a customer portrait. You need to understand what is unique to your services that might interest potential buyers and the first step to identifying your target audience is asking yourself the right questions.

Ask Questions

What? – What type of product/service you are providing.
Who? – To who you are catering these services.
Why? – Why people need your product or how your product can benefit them.
When? – When do people will require your goods or services?
Where? – Where you are going to sell your product to the customers.

These questions are one of the most crucial parts of understanding your business and your customer needs. You should evaluate your answers to determine all the required variables.

Placing your variables in a written format will draw a clear image of your potential buyers and set limits and boundaries of your company.

Collect Data

Statistics is another important aspect of identifying your customer base. Not only it is very fact based and relevant to the business itself, but also very efficient and simple to execute.

Outsourcing the data and performing surveys is one of the easiest ways of quickly collecting the information for further evaluation.

Surveys are very popular among different companies to quickly find the right people to target. The surveys can be performed anywhere. On the streets, the internet, mail, etc. Those who could potentially be interested in buying your service will take part, and after a certain period, the portrait of a potential buyer is going to appear.

In order to retrieve the relevant information you need to ask the right questions in the survey, otherwise, it’s going to be a waste of time and funds.

Things that you need to understand about your target audience are:

Age, financial capability, social status, relationship status, and profession.
Where they spend their time (social networks, coffee shops, etc.)
Why does that person require your product? (how can it make his/hers life easier)
Why specifically your product is attractive to them.

Not all of these can be answered or asked when performing the survey, but some of these criteria are interconnected and finding out one of them can help you fill in the others.

Explore Statistics

The process doesn’t stop at collecting data. All the collected data will be useless unless you know how to retrieve certain components for the benefit of your company.

After the information is collected, you are going to have a clear picture of people who are willing to make the purchase. Based on it, your task will be to shift your company’s marketing methods as well as adjust your service to fit specifically selected categories.

Every aspect of it matters and should not be overlooked. Especially take into consideration the age of the demographic as it influences the human tendencies the most. The statistics are shown to be accurate as they are strictly fact based. These statistics can also show you potential problems when it comes to targeting isolated groups. If your type of business is highly competitive, a detailed statistic will allow you to find a way to enhance your selling point by understanding singular interests that the customers might all have in common.

In conclusion, identifying your target audience is going to make a big difference in your business plan. Be ready to make adjustments even if it might a potential risk or temporary sales loss. Isolating your market was always shown to be more effective than approaching a broader market. The 21st century is a highly competitive time to live in, and if you don’t find a way to evoke the audience by your originality or make their life sufficiently easier, it’s going to be hard to promote your product.

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