Who is your target market?

We talk all the time about knowing who your ideal customer is – who your target market is.

Why?

Here’s a couple of reasons.

Being specific about who your target market is allows you to connect with them on a deeper level.
Because you connect with your target market, they get you and like you. They will make the effort to get to know you and trust you. Otherwise known as the know, like and trust factor.
Your target market generally willing to spend more with you – because they know, like and trust you. They see value in the services or products you are offering them.

A reminder (and a little bit of a lecture).

Your target market is NOT everyone.

While, absolutely, there are some people who do want your product, who love everything about your business, your product, NOT every person out there is not interested in or wants your product! (Note: this also applies if you are a service based business.)

The people who want your product, who see value in you, and who are prepared to pay you – they are your ideal clients – your target market.

Lecture over!!

So, what do you need to know about your target market?

Well, you need to understand:

who they are
what is important to them
where they prefer to find information
and importantly, why they will buy from you

This stuff is called psychographics.

Psychographics vs Demographics

It’s also valuable to know the demographics of your target market. That's the age, location, income stuff. Basically data based information.

You need to know this stuff (the demographics) because there's not point advertising to 20 year olds if your target market, your ideal client, the one who is going to spend the most money with you is over 50!

Psychographic information gives you insights into how to connect with your target market.

If you think purely about the demographics of your target market you can waste time and money developing your marketing and trying to appeal to people who fit the age and location bracket, but who actually aren't interested in your product. That's where the psycographics come in.

The psychographic information is waaaaaay more important.

Why?

Because we buy on emotion and justify it with logic afterwards. The psychographic stuff is all about the emotion. If we can understand the emotional drivers of the different people within the demographic you are targeting then your marketing and messaging is tailored specifically to connect with them.

The psychographic information will drive your marketing activities and content creation.

How do you know the psychographics of your target market?

There are six key questions that help you identify them:

Who are your most profitable customers that you love to deal with?
What is important to them?
What are their values?
Where do they prefer to find their information?
Why would they buy from you? in other words, what problem are you solving for them?
When are they online? Which social media platform are they most active?

Answer those questions and you are well on your way to identifying your target market.