Identify Target Markets with 7 Easy Steps

Learn about how to perform target market identification to extract the full potential of your marketing efforts. Explore why is it important to identify a target market and what are its strategies.

Identifying your target market is crucial for any business, regardless of its size, industry, or location. It allows you to focus your marketing efforts on the businesses that are most likely to buy from you.

Knowing how to identify your target market can help you understand if the app is right for your business. It can also help in building market segmentation and getting you to your target audience in time. 

Now while market segmentation according to many sounds easy, it is probably the biggest contributor to failed businesses. Thus, having an answer to how to define your target market becomes critical to your business’s success. 

In this article today, we are going to learn how to choose your target market. We’ll explore the strategies and types that all mobile app marketing companies carefully study for their clients.  

Why is It Essential to Identify the Target Market?

Target market strategy revolves around establishing a group of people you will be reaching out to with the marketing message. These are the people who are likely to spend their money on your app and are united by some common traits like behaviors and demographics. 

Until and unless you are Google, the chances that the world is your audience is very slim. Thus, you will need a proper target market segmentation plan to reach the right audience. A key part of answering how you would identify the target market lies in understanding the difference between the two common interchangeable words: 

• Target audience 
• Target marketing 

The target market is typically the end customer while the target audience is the one your brand advertises to. An example of a target market can be seen in a coaching institute. While the target market of the institute will be the students, the decision maker or the people paying for the service are the parents - who are also the target audience. 

A key part of defining a target market strategy lies in knowing the types of the target market. Let us look into the concept in detail in the next section.

Demographic market segmentation 

Demographic segmentation is one of the most common and straightforward forms of market segmentation. This mode of defining the target market classifies the customers on the basis of attributes like location, income level, and age. This typically comes in handy during B2C marketing efforts.  The elements to note here are:

• Gender 
• Age
• Ethnicity 
• Income
• Education level
• Geographical area

Many companies prefer demographics as they are easy to measure and because they are usually associated with consumer needs and wants. For instance, a toy company might target its marketing toward young families with children. Meanwhile, a luxury car brand might focus on higher-income individuals.

Psychographic market segmentation

This part of the market segmentation answers what your target market is by classifying customers based on their personal traits. Psychographic segmentation divides the market based on the lifestyle, personality traits, values, opinions, and interests of consumers. Usually, the factors that are considered under this segment include:

• Personal values
• Political Stance 
• Attitude
• Aspirations 
• Lifestyle 
• Opinions

This type of segmentation goes deeper than demographics to understand what influences consumer behavior. Psychographic segmentation can be especially effective for products or services that appeal to consumers' sense of identity or personal values.

For example, a company may target individuals who value sustainability and eco-friendliness. Or those who lead a very active lifestyle and prioritize health and fitness.

Behavioral market segmentation

Behavioral segmentation is based on actual consumer behavior toward products. This classifies customers on the basis of their behavior around your app - when they buy your product and how they intend to use it. Here are some of the elements that help design the behavioral market segmentation - 

• Frequency of usage 
• Brand loyalty 
• Product benefits 
• Occasion 

Behavioral data is very useful for developing products that meet the existing needs of audiences. The method of finding target market is also used to enhance customer loyalty through personalized marketing strategies. To give an example. A software company might offer different subscription plans based on the usage patterns and feature preferences of its users.

Benefit Segmentation

Benefit segmentation focuses on the benefits and positive outcomes that consumers might look for in a product. This approach to target market identification looks at the specific benefits that segments of customers are looking for and tailors the marketing to meet those needs. 

For instance, some consumers might buy a particular brand of shampoo for its anti-dandruff qualities, while others might choose it for its hair-softening benefits. Understanding and targeting these specific desires can lead to highly effective marketing strategies.

Geographic Segmentation

Geographic segmentation divides the market based on geographical boundaries. This can be as broad as continents and countries or as specific as cities or neighborhoods. This type evaluates factors such as: 

• Climate
• region-specific trends
• geographical 

These features play a crucial role in forming these segments. Geographic segmentation helps businesses tailor their products and marketing efforts to fit the local demands and cultural preferences of consumers in different areas.

For example, a company may market snow gear in colder regions while promoting beachwear in coastal areas. 

How to Identify Target Market? Steps to Identify Target Market

The answer to how to identify your target market is not as straightforward as founders would like it to be. Extensive research involves finding the target market and then targeting your potential customers with the best marketing strategies. 

However, there are some time-tested ways to run target audience analysis, ones that we are going to look into. 

Look at Your Current Customers

The primary step of target marketing lies in defining your existing or past customers. If you already have customers, analyze who they are. Look for common characteristics and interests. Which aspects of your product do they appreciate the most? Try to identify shared attributes or buying patterns through web analytics tools, email campaigns, and social media.

Understanding why your current customers are drawn to your product can help you in target market identification. Here are the factors you should be on the lookout for - 

• Age 
• Location 
• What made them buy your product 
• The marketing campaign that helped them convert 
• Psychological attributes

It is critical to make this information tracking a constant effort as it will help keep the findings organized and make it easy to find new trends or patterns shaping up.

Get to know your products. 

Another part of the answer to how you would describe your target market lies in getting to know your products. Start by looking closely at what you are selling. Ask yourself what problems your product or service solves and who would benefit most from it. List the features of your product and the benefits each feature offers. This will help you understand who might be interested in what you have to offer.

Knowing in what situations customers choose your brand and how they use it thereafter will help you chart out a strategic, data-driven target market strategy. The different ways to gather this data can be to send your customer surveys, get your product reviewed, schedule a call, or simply give them a reward in return for their time in both emails and calls. 

Analyze your competitors 

Observing your competitors can provide valuable insights. Identify who they are targeting and how they are positioning themselves. Are there gaps in their approach that you could fill? Or is there a segment they are overlooking that you could serve better? 

Investigate their portfolio through websites, blogs, and social media posts and try to identify a pattern through the content about their target audience. You should also look into the comments on the posts to analyze the kind of people interacting with their business. Learning from the competition’s activities can help you spot opportunities in the market.

Use Market Research

To determine target market, conduct surveys, interviews, or focus groups to gather more data about potential customers. Market research can validate your assumptions and give new insights into what your target market wants and needs. This research can also tell you where your potential customers spend time online. This can be crucial for planning your digital marketing strategies.

Consider target market demographics 

Break down the market by demographics such as age, gender, occupation, income level, education level, marital status, and more. Demographic data can help you paint a clearer picture of who your marketing efforts should target. For instance, if you’re selling luxury goods, you might focus on higher-income groups.

Analyze Psychographics

Another step of finding target market is Psychographics. It involves looking at the lifestyles, values, interests, and attitudes of potential customers. This type of information can be more helpful than demographics. This is because it deals with psychological factors. Knowing your potential customers’ values and attitudes can help you understand what drives their buying decisions.

Refine the research 

Running an analysis of your target market is going to be a continuous research-backed task. Even when you identify the types of target audience, you will need to run experiments on keeping it up to date with the changing marketing needs. 

An approach to achieve this can be to keep on top of your existing customers - analyze why they are buying from you, what their opinion is on your offering, and the benefits they are drawing from it. This will help you measure the efficiency of your app marketing communication and run well-strategized A/B testing on the product by partnering with the top mobile app development companies.  

Defining Target Market Strategies

Differentiated Marketing

Targeting many market segments with distinct marketing tactics suited to each is known as differentiated marketing. This strategy takes into account the diversity present in a larger market. It then tackles it by creating distinct offers for various market groups. These offers are tailored to the particular requirements and preferences of each group. 

To give a target market analysis example for differentiated marketing. A cosmetic company may target one skincare line to teenagers dealing with acne. Meanwhile, it may also target an adult audience base seeking anti-aging products. This strategy can significantly expand a company's market reach. However, may require more resources in terms of varied product offerings and marketing campaigns.

Concentrated Marketing

Concentrated marketing, or niche marketing, focuses on a single, well-defined market segment or audience. This strategy allows companies to concentrate their resources on understanding and serving that segment exceptionally well. It is particularly effective for smaller companies with limited resources that can become leaders in a niche market by specializing deeply. 

For instance, a company might focus solely on producing high-end photographic equipment for professional wildlife photographers, a relatively small but specific target.

Mass Marketing

Mass marketing casts a wide net to capture the broadest audience possible, overlooking niche preferences and focusing on general appeal. This approach suits large companies with universally needed products, like staple foods or basic hygiene items. The strategy not only broadens customer reach but also drives down costs by producing and marketing in bulk, achieving significant economies of scale.

Micromarketing

Micromarketing zooms in on a very small, specific target—sometimes down to a single neighborhood or store. This technique involves customizing products and promotions to align closely with the distinct preferences of a local area. For example, a coffee shop might develop exclusive blends that resonate with local tastes or offer promotions during community events, fostering a strong, personal connection with its clientele.

Customer-Oriented Strategy

This mode of selecting a target market puts the customer at the heart of every marketing decision, aiming to build and nurture strong, lasting relationships. It’s about tuning into what customers really want and need, responding quickly, and keeping them engaged over time. 

Personalized services are key here, as they show customers they're valued and understood. Many businesses enhance this relationship-driven approach with CRM (Customer Relationship Management) systems to track customer interactions meticulously, allowing for finely tailored marketing moves.

How MobileAppDaily Helps Shine a Light on Target Markets

By now, it's no secret that target market identification can be complex and might not be everyone's cup of tea. With that said that does not take away the importance of defining your target market. 

MobileAppDaily helps businesses overcome this problem by connecting them with prominent digital marketing companies. These agencies hold decades of experience in various fields and are fully capable of finding the target market that is most ideal for you.  

Conclusion 

Defining the target market for your application or physical product will be an effort that combines both internal and external research. However, knowing how companies define their target marketing statement can help set you on the right path in terms of what yours should contain. 

We hope that the article helped answer how to define your target market and that you will now be on the path to elevating your marketing efforts with a new approach.