A crumbling target market...?

After watching the Apprentice on Wednesday evening I thought I would put together a quick blog on target marketing or niche marketing as it is also called, especially considering how poorly Team Logic did on the task.

Why is it important? And what is it?

Target marketing can be the key to a company’s success. If you know who your target audience is then it will make the whole marketing mix fit together perfectly, and make your life a whole lot easier to justify where and how you spend your budget.

First of all it’s important to ensure we look at what target marketing is and how it works. Target marketing is simply the process of looking at and identifying the person or group of people who will ultimately buy your product or service.  You will probably have done this already, but are you actually using the information in your marketing planning?  This information should be the basis of your marketing plan, all the way down to the packaging. Would you make the same mistake as Logic with their feminine package which was apparently designed for the mass market?

As mentioned, how you then target these people creates the marketing plan, which encompasses the use of the marketing mix. More marketing jargon for another blog.

How do you break down your target market?

There are three main ways of defining your target market:

 

Geographic segmentation – as it suggests this is based on location, good for mass marketing or for traditional retail.

• Demographic segmentation – This type of target segmentation is based on measurable statistics, such as age or income.  For example would a teenager buy the same as a 60 year old?  A great example was episode 7 of The Apprentice where the teams created a Freemium Magazine – did they really target their audience well?

• Psychographic segmentation – Focused on a lifestyle preferences, for example being urban dwellers, pet lovers, parents etc

Do you actually understanding your customers?

Again linking back to The Apprentice, in some of their tasks the teams were asked to create a product for a chosen target market, but did they really understand their supposedly chosen market?  Did Logic really target the high end young entrepreneur/business men or was it just a lad’s mag?  And how appropriate was the name for the over 60’s magazine?

So not only is it important to know who you are targeting but you also need to understand this market in order to meet their needs and choose a marketing strategy to reach them.  Phew! Time a brew and to take a look at Absolute’s current target market :)