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Determining Your Target Market
When you want to market your products or services, the first thing you need to do isto determine your target market. Once target market is determined, you can then usethe four P in marketing to decide how to approach your target market.
The Four P referred here is product, price, place (distribution) and promotion.
So, why is target market important? The main reason is that company exists for areason. It needs to differentiate itself from competition in order to survive.
For example if you have decided to sell bottled water to the general mass in the urbanarea, then good luck with that. In the US, Pepsi and Coke has widespread distributionof bottled water consumption through its Aquafina and Dasani brand. If you stillinsists on selling bottled water, then you need to narrow your target market.
For example, instead of selling to the general mass, your target market for the bottledwater can be physically active individuals who avoids thirst quenchers such asGatorade when they exercise.
Once you identify this target market, you would then use the four P to differentiateyourself from regular bottled water. For example, in terms of place (distribution), youcan avoid places such as fast food restaurants or lounges.
Statistically, people who are exercising, seldom visit these places. You would thenconcentrate your distribution on places such as the school's sporting facility.
While choosing your target market seems trivial, it will cost you a lot of marketingdollars if done incorrectly.
Let's assume that you do not decide what your target market is and you are now usingthe four P in marketing to market your product. You would then distribute yourbottled water to places such as convenience stores, gas stations and the shoppingmall.
Will you capture audiences who are physically more active than the population? Yes,you will. But, the percentage of that audience is small compared to if you focus yourdistribution on that target market. As a result, you spend large amount of money tocapture a small portion of the audience. Worse still, big companies such as Pepsi andCoke are now aware that you are invading their turf. The next thing they'll do is tobombard the mass media with advertisement and price cut to make your productsinvisible. If they do it long enough, your survival may be in question.
Therefore, choosing your target market is really important before marketing yourproducts.
In the online world, you need to choose your target market too. Once you choose yourtarget market, the four P should reflect this decision. For example, if your targetmarket is individuals who are looking for ways to invest their money, you should notadvertise in general audience such as CNN. Your marketing budget will be moreeffective if you spend your money in financial website such as Yahoo! Finance or TheMotley Fool.
Same thing with your distribution channel. If you distribute your content to thegeneral article directory, you will get loads of visitors who may not be interested inyour products or services.
Furthermore, as discussed earlier, it might attract your bigger competitors thinkingthat you are trying to take away their lunch. If your bigger competitors are not inept,they will then react accordingly and launch offensive campaigns that will render yourmarketing campaign useless.
Fortunately, nowadays, there are plenty of niche article directories allowingmarketers to publish articles of certain field. Thus, smaller publishers can gain morevisibility as niche directories generally have less people submitting their contents.
Furthermore, larger competitors are reluctant to publish their contents there. Thereason is that they have a larger cost overhead. Focusing on small target market willnot do them any good. It is their loss. But you, my friend, should not miss thisopportunity. It is one of the most efficient way of using your marketing dollars.
