You have painstakingly crafted your Business Plan.  You know your why.  You’ve put pen to paper and defined your unique selling proposition. Your business is set.  Or is it?  How are people going to know what you have to offer?  And to whom will you be offering all your awesome and well planned out goods and services to? While it is relatively easy to think “Oh everyone will want this”, the truth is that is rarely true.  After all, even bacon doesn’t appeal to everyone.  And that is BACON.  Devoting time and resources to identify more targeted markets can help you maximize your marketing ROI.

Knowing to whom and when to market your product or service can result in a much higher rate of return.  If you are unsure of where exactly to begin in getting to know your market and crafting buyer personas, the steps below can help you identify your target market.

FOCUS

One of the most effective things you can do to market your product or service smartly is to find your niche.  You cannot be all things to all people.  But you can be the right thing for the right people.  Make priorities to give your marketing the proper strategy.

What needs do your goods and services address?

This will tell you who is most likely to use your product. As you answer this, consider factors such as age, buying power, geography, gender, marital status, race. Also consider how these factors intersect with one another.  After all, a single woman who has just graduated from college has MUCH different needs and pain points from a married woman with four children.  They will have different spending habits and different levels of disposable income. The ingenue will probably want the least expensive option, wherein the older woman will probably seek items of more qualitative value.

Look at Primary Value Propositions

Who is most likely to be interested what your goods and services offer? Whatever your product or service, list out the core values that are offered and the pain points you intend to alleviate. These addressed needs will point to the demographic groups with these needs.

GATHER DATA

(This is easily Manic Maple’s favorite part of the whole business planning process.)

Choosing the correct target market includes drawing conclusions from relevant data. This data might come from a variety of sources such as google searches, focus groups, market research.  Keep in mind as you conduct your target market research that your context is accounted for and that your sources are reputable.

Gather Survey Data

Metrics and analytics are a great way to pinpoint your relevant demographic groups. This might mean conducting focus groups, sending out email surveys, or even hiring a marketing firm to do more in-depth work for you. The key is to collect demographic details. This can help you better understand what demographic groups are looking for the very thing you are selling.

Draw on Existing Data

What are your competitors doing? If your business offers a product or service similar to those already on the market, do your homework! What demographic groups are buying from your competitors? When do they buy? Which specific goods and services are the most popular? Where are the gaps in service? There is a lot of data to be found online to gather a wide-angle view of the types of customers that are purchasing items similar to what you are offering. Look at buying habits and trends.

Look to Your Own Network

The next time you are chatting with friends and family, pay attention. What goods and services are they using? Would they benefit from the goods and services you offer?  If so, why?  If not, why? You can and should ask straightforward questions like, “Would you use this? Do you have a need for this?”  If you keep in mind that those within your sphere may give you softened answers because they love you, you can still gain valuable information.

You can also tap into your network of business colleagues and mentors. Ask them to carefully examine your business and its offerings. They might give you insight to target markets you had not even considered in addition to thinking up ways you might market your business to those markets.

Make sure to make the sources you draw upon for research as diverse as possible to give you lots of perspectives to work with. Your goal is to make it is easy for your target market to find you and for you to find them. And once you know your market, you can craft buyer personas to help you know how better to market your amazing and well thought out business to them.

As Manic Maple continually says, “Marketing is about meeting demand, not creating demand.”  Therefore, to have a successful business plan and strategy (ultimately your business), you must meet the demands of your target market.  Get to know your target market so well, that as you craft your business’s buyer personas, you can develop a fully developed fictional character that contains personality traits and psychographic details.  That way as you develop and implement your business plan, you know exactly how to approach your target market.