Target your Market

There is nothing worse than wasting time and money on marketing efforts that yield little results. It's frustrating, at the least. Have you really narrowed down your marketing to hit the exact audience you cater to?

Sure the newspaper guy wants to offer you a great rate in his newspaper, but is that newspaper going to your target marketing? And sure you could be ranking in the top of Internet search results for certain keywords, but are those keywords geared to your audiences attitudes?

Targeting your perfect audience takes a good deal of analyzation. It takes thinking about you, your company, your employees, your product, your brand, your community and your customers.

1. Don't overlook the biggest factor in targeting your market - how much money people have. Some people say that your marketing shouldn't have anything to do with the spending power you customers and clients has, but it really has a lot to do with knowing your key audience. Sure, not every single customer of yours will fit into your target income level - they may be higher or lower - but base your target market on the average income or spending power your clients have. This will help you drastically in marketing to those who generally can afford or benefit from your product or service.

2. Give your audience an age, and possibly gender. Again, this is just like income - some people say don't judge your target market by age. But you have to. If your target customer is, in reality, a 60-year old woman and you continue to put advertising into a magazine for new parents just because you think a lot of people read it and it's a good deal, you are wasting money. Your target customer isn't reading it.

3. Give your audience a location. It's okay to say "nationwide" or "worldwide" if your audience truly is that large. But the more fine tuned you can get your location, the better for your marketing. Be reasonable in who really can use your products and services.

4. Don't forget about your target audiences' values. What are the things they value in life? Why do they value your product or service? Knowing what is important to them allows you to understand how they spend their time, and thus, target their feelings and emotions.

5. Get as specific as possible in targeting your market. Women who like high fashion but are on a budget. Childless couples who love their pets. Grandmothers with granddaughters ages newborn to five. Balding men in their thirties. High-end supermarkets in a 100-mile radius of your company.

When you get this specific, not only can you find your niche marketing avenues, you can also think about other companies you can associate yourself with that cater to this niche market and you can also work at coming into contact with those specific people in your day-to-day operations. And you can also determine the feelings and attitudes of those very specific groups of people - key in giving emotion to your marketing.