It is a group of customers to whom your product or brand is intended. It is defined as a group of people that is obtained taking into account the demographic characteristics, needs and interests that they have, these people are the ideal recipient of your products / services and offers.

It is defined by the industry, has characteristics or needs that can be used to develop a communication and sales strategy.

Importance of the target market

Understanding your potential market will give you two very important concepts: knowing which target market plans are most practical for your product or service and establishing who your target customers will be.

Your target customer is that group of people who have the greatest number of possibilities to acquire our product or our service, for example:

If our target market is people who consume stationery products, a target audience could be people between the ages of 12 and 16 who are currently studying.

Target market characteristics

Size

It is considered a large and open group of people or a very small and specific one.

Demographic data.

The target audience must have characteristics in common, for example: location, socioeconomic level, gender and age.

Consumption habits.

Consumer habits are the patterns and trends that customers follow to purchase a product. Looking for customers with similar characteristics will make it easier to offer your product or service.

The IAB Mexico study: "The Mexican consumer: A new Omnichannel Journey" revealed that the pandemic generated significant changes in consumption, now companies seek to generate an omnichannel relationship with buyers in which they interact both virtually and physically, it is It is important to take this into account when creating our strategies.

Link with the product.

The "buyer personas" are fictitious profiles that we create by uniting all the characteristics of our ideal buyer and to create them you can base yourself on qualitative and quantitative data from your research. It is vital that your buyer persona have a connection to your service or product.

Problems and needs.

Pain points are situations that generate a negative feeling for the consumer/user/buyer when interacting with a product or service. The target audience can share ailments that your service or product can solve.

Gathering information for a good target market

This is the key point of the process to define your target market. The collection of information can be done through two research methods: qualitative and quantitative. This will help you to know your target audience and determine what kind of people match the ideals or the concept of the business you want to start.

Target Market Types

#1 Geographic

When we analyze this type of target market, we understand that the ideal consumers come together in an already defined geographic range. As would a nation, a state or a city.

Since this is a point to take into account for local companies, it is necessary to establish values, interests and priorities, as they tend to change drastically depending on the region in which we focus. It is essential to have the technology to reach the desired geographic market and know how to take advantage of that reach.

#2 Income level

Apart from the distinctive features of your company, the economic level of your target customers is essential to define a target market. An example: In a wholesale store, the goal is probably to capture the budget mid-level range; on the other hand, a company that is dedicated to selling designer clothes will probably seek higher economic power.

#3 Gender and age.

Many businesses establish their market based on the gender or age to which the product is directed. We give an example, a business dedicated to the sale of sporting goods could be more focused on men; while a hair care store might target women.

Likewise, businesses are given the task of sending their message to various groups in specific age ranges, such as: adolescents, infants or people who are retired.

#4 Lifestyle

The way people live is also a type of target market, it is very common for companies to act based on this strategy to direct their message according to people's psychographic criteria. Likewise, basic things about people such as their entertainment, things they like in particular or interests become the fundamental basis of this type of target market.

How to define our target market

Distinguish the competitive advantage of your business

Carry out this process properly and the answer to your target market will be given automatically:

• What difficulty do you solve?
  
• What need do you satisfy
  
• What wishes do you fulfill?
  

Therefore it is not necessary to explain what you sell, an example: "Sale of coffee from the mountains of Oaxaca". Instead, you can define what your customers will receive with your product: "Bring the purest and most select coffee to your table by the hands of our farmers and delight yourself with the sweet notes of the Oaxaca mountains."

Once the benefits of what you sell are clearly established, it should be easier for you to establish who needs your services or products.

Limit your target market

In this part of the analysis you should already know who your product is aimed at, starting from this point we must establish the target market we plan to reach.

We must be quite specific in this aspect, first we must define our target market demographics. Then we have to identify the psychographics of the people who are going to benefit from our services.

Be objective

This part may be the most complicated part of your target market selection process.

People can recall, investigate, and develop information in such a way that it confirms their hypotheses or established beliefs. This is a more common mistake than it seems, especially within companies that do research without running actual tests.

Evaluate your target market

With the knowledge about who you plan to sell to, you should investigate whether it is worth reaching your target market.

Now let's ask ourselves a few simple questions:

• Are there enough people in our target market to make our business profitable?
  
•  Are there enough people in our target market to make our business profitable? Do you have the resources in this target market segment to acquire our service?
  
• Would our customers' purchases be constant or would we have to look for new ones from time to time?
  
• Is the competition strong?
  
• If so, what are the differences with the competitor, and why would customers choose you?
  

Conclusion

Once we understand everything mentioned, we must work to realize what kind of people our products can be most useful for. Likewise, keep in mind that the only way to know who you are going to address is by carrying out real tests and avoiding prejudices that may harm the final solution that we offer through our products/services, as well as our sales opportunities.