Identifying your Target Market

There are 5 main methods to understand how to group people based on these characteristics. Geographic, demographic, psychographic benefits and behavioral. Geographic has to do with where people live. So do you live in a big city? Do you live out in the country, do you live in a really hot climate, or really cold climate? Demographic are variables such as age, gender, income, or education. Psychographic has to do with values or the lifestyle of the person or customer you're trying to serve. Benefits are what aspects are you trying needs or wants or you're trying to satisfy of the customer. And then finally behavioral are those things how different customers use your product for different purposes. 

So let's look at a concrete example for this one. Let's talk about shoes, okay? There are lots of different kinds of shoes out there, specifically tennis shoes. So if you look at customers based off of their geographic reasons, so where they live, you might think of someone who lives in a really hot climate, maybe near the coastal region or near the beach. And they care about having really lightweight tennis shoes that are really breathable. So they don't get so hot. Then if you look at demographic characteristics of your customer, you might think about their age or their gender. So if they're a boy or a girl, they might like different colors, different styles of the tennis shoe. So say the bright blue probably appeals to a younger demographic or kind of middle range either high school students or young adults. 

Then you can move on to psychographics. So what is their lifestyle like? Well, these ten of shoes are an Adidas brand. So let's say the customer really identifies themselves with that brand and they are athletes and they're very sporty. And so they think that this brand really delivers on all of the things they care about for that product. When you think about benefits, you think about what they care about of the shoe. What wants or needs are satisfied. So maybe for this shoe, they really like that. They're laces. They're really comfortable, easy to slip on and off. And so those are different benefits they might derive from the product. Last of all, are the behavioral aspects. So what are they actually going to use the shoe for? In this case, they're an athlete, so maybe they run a marathon or they run really long distances.

So that's what they care about using the product for. So you may define your target market and find out that that really isn't the right customer for your business. And so this is really a process where you need to go out and talk to your customers. Go out to the places where they might find your product and watch people. How do they interact with the product? What do they choose to buy? Ask them, ask them questions about it. Why did they like that product? What are aspects of the product that fit their lifestyle? And make observations about their age and what activities they like to do. So keep gathering that data and that information to understand the most about your customer and understand who is the right target market for your business.