30th
January 2010
Finding
Your Target Market
 Very
often we ask business persons two extremely
pertinent questions, “Who are your customers?
Who will buy your product?” and are surprised
to find that otherwise savvy business people
either have no idea who will buy from them,
or they assume that ‘everyone’ will.
Assumptions like these can lead to wrong decisions,
wrong pricing, wrong marketing strategy –
and ultimately, business failure.
The most successful businesses understand that
only a limited number of people will buy their
product or service. The task then becomes determining,
as closely as possible, exactly who those people
are, and ‘targeting’ the business’s
marketing efforts and dollars toward them.
You, too, can build a better, stronger business,
by identifying and serving a particular customer
group – your target market.
One of the first things you need to do is to
refine your product or service so that you are
NOT trying to be ‘all things to all people.’
Become a specialist!
For example, a colleague of mine in an eco-tourism
company, made some specific decisions early
in his market planning. As a charter boat business,
he knew that there were plenty of fishing charter
operators in the area, and ‘party boats’
as well. So he decided that he would offer sightseeing
or special event charters, and that he would
not allow alcohol on board, or fishing rods.
Yes, this decision eliminated a percentage of
the market – but it also gave him a ‘niche’
that he could capitalize on, and expanded his
market in a way that other charter operators
could not take advantage of.
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