How do I identify my Target Market

Hi folks, it's Kimberly Haubscheid with Entrepreneurs Rocket Fuel and we are going to answer some questions about creating a target market and how to create a target market and what happens if your target market is too big or too small or what's an avatar? Or what if you have a multi dimensional market like you have people who maybe you're selling a product for children, but the people who buy it are not really the children. The people who buy it are the parents or even the grandparents, those children and how you mesh those things together. So we're going to do a video on all of those different pieces and hopefully this can help you in creating your target market. Now the most important thing of a target market is that people would self identify or that they would be able to identify friends and family that fall into that target market. So a good example of a target market might be authors or doctors and nurses or, or teachers or parents with kids who are 5 to 11 or hikers, people who not only if they said if you were in a room and you said, hey, would all the hikers raise their hand? People would raise their hand and say, yeah, I'm a hiker, but also people who are not hikers would be able to think of people in their group and their sphere of influence who are hikers. So if you said I have a service for hikers or I have a service for parents of 5 to 11 year olds and you don't have 5 to 11 year olds, but you know some friends and family who do have 5 to 11 year olds, you will be listening on their behalf to say, oh, could Sally use this or could George use this? So that's really what you're looking for is somebody something to pique their interest and add sort of a leaning in, like I want to pay attention to this because I am this person or I know people who are like that. Alright, now I want to talk a little bit about how you can make sure that they self identify. So for example, I have a business that creates audiobooks, right? So if you have a business that creates audiobooks, your target market might be authors. Fantastic. So my target market is authors, but if I go into a group of people and they are entrepreneurs, for example, and they might have written a book five or six years ago and I say, hey, would all the authors please raise their hand? The entrepreneurs with books might not raise their hand because they don't really self identify that way. They self identify as an entrepreneur. Alright, So I might want to target it if I'm in a Meetup and it's a bunch of entrepreneurs. I might say how many of you are entrepreneurs, entrepreneurs that have ever written a book, rather than say how many of you are authors? Because they don't self identify that way. I hope that's helpful. All right, Secondly, I want to be sure that you, that they, when you're saying your target market, that other people can identify that way. So if you say I'm looking for people who are entrepreneurs with, that have written a book, they might be able to think of a friend or family member who are like, oh yeah, you know, George wrote a book and he's an entrepreneur. So that might be a good match for, for them. I might need to listen and find out what she has to offer for those people. All right, now we're going to talk about what happens if you're selling a product that is widely or universally something that could be offered to a lot of people. For example, my favorite one is body lotion. Right? So body lotion. I met an entrepreneur and she sold body lotion. And I said, so who's your target market? And she said, everybody with skin. And I hope that got a laugh from the group, from the audience here. So everybody with skin could potentially use her product. That's true, but it isn't really a target market because everybody with skin would not necessarily buy her product. Right, but there is a niche and a target market of people who do purchase products that are related to body lotion. Alright, so maybe it's people who.

If you can find a group of people who actually have purchased products before for themselves or for others. A great example of that, if it's a body lotion that is kid safe, you might say parents of infants or something like that. So the Johnson and Johnson baby lotion that is available specifically for infants is sold then to parents with small children or maybe grandparents who are buying it for their kids to use for their grandbabies. So you really want to lock in on who is going to be purchasing your product. So you can ask two things in order to do that. If you're an entrepreneur and you're relatively new, you can say who has already bought from me? And from that category you can then expand, like what groups do they fall into? All right, so if I have an offering that is for $10,000, that is for.

A pair of jeans or something like that, then you really have a very narrow target market. Now anybody could wear a $10,000 pair of jeans, but there's only a certain group of human beings who are going to Purchase that right now, $10,000 might be an exaggeration, but that kind of thing, you're like, what is your target market? Somebody who can afford it, who would purchase it, who has purchased from you before? What markets do they fall into? Second, you might ask yourself, what customers have you worked with that you had a lot of fun working with, that really got your energy rising, right? That you enjoyed working with them and that they were a lot of fun to work with. And then when you find that one person or two people or three people, start asking yourself, what groups do they fall into? Are they parents, are they doctors, Are they nurses and nurse practitioners? Are they authors, are they sailors, are they hikers? What do they do? And what groups can you market to? And then you can tailor your product marketing specifically for those people. All right, what if your market is too narrow? Now, a lot of people talk about their avatar. You know, my avatar is usually an amalgam of people that is a single person, like a, you know, a blonde 45 year old with three kids that lives in the San Diego district with, that has kids that are in middle school or something like that. Very, very, very specific. Where it's just really all the way down to one human being. If you run into that, if your market is very small, you probably want to know how they self identify. So how do they describe themselves? Are they entrepreneurs? Are they some part of some larger community and group? And usually that will happen. An example of this that I like to give is past US Presidents, right? There's not a lot of them. And if you are targeting living past US Presidents, there's significantly less. Right? So if that's your market, you would then think of those individuals and think what other categories they fall into. Is it politicians? Is it politicians who live in Washington D.C. is it politicians who were also senators? What kinds of people are they? Or are they business owners or what? What other groups do they fall into? NASA astronauts is another one. So what other groups do they fall into? Like what other kinds of people are they beyond that, are they fathers, are they mothers, Are they, you know, what other kinds of groups would they self identify with besides past US President or NASA astronaut? All right, so what if your market is multi dimensional? Now, if you sell stuff to one group, but another group buys it. We talked about that with the lotion, right? And that parents, the infants clearly are not buying the lotion for themselves. Although they are a user of the product, they're a beneficiary of the product. They're not actually purchasing the product. And writing you the check. All right, so one question is to ask yourself who's writing me checks? Right? But if you sell stuff for one group and another group buys it, that it's important to distinguish what, what you are marketing to and what your product design is going to be for. So for example, this is a great story. I actually work with a client who has a really cool service. They sell tennis shoes, which are really cool tennis shoes and they have a GPS tracking device in them. They sell them for Alzheimer's patients, right? And they're very comfortable shoes. They're very, they're kind of a little bit upscale shoe. They're shoes that an Alzheimer's patient would be comfortable wearing and would probably choose. Right? But the Alzheimer's patients are not their target market. Their target market is actually adult daughters of Alzheimer's patients. The reason why is because the purchasers of the product they found were 80% women in their 40s to 55. That was their target market. They're looking for people who will purchase this for their parents. But the parents actually have to want to wear them, right? They can't be very uncomfortable. They can't be. They can't be. Not easily to tie or not easy to put on or something like that. The product design is part of your product design. But when you're looking for your target market, market by definition is who you are marketing to. So your target market is actually about who you're marketing and selling to. Alright? So one dimension is design, product design. Another dimension is your market. Alright, so you're. When you're thinking of your target market, it's probably going to those adult women who have parents with Alzheimer's. Now this applies to a lot of people. Besides something as narrow as that, college planning is a really good example of the difference between a beneficiary of a product and the purchaser of a product. Diapers of course, are as well. And so you need to make sure that your product design is around something that the end user is going to want to benefit from and will accept and will incorporate into their life. But you are not going to want to. They may not be the person that you're actually selling to. So I hope that's clear. Just something to think about. One last point. Your avatar is not your target market. Right? Your avatar is a single individual who is like your perfect, most ideal customer. And it's really great to focus in on that. So you can say, this is the one person I'm talking to. When you deliver messages, it's often really helpful to be able to deliver a message to one single person that you know is truly going to benefit you or benefit from what you have to offer. But that is not your target market for marketing purposes. Your target market is going to be wider than that. All right, ladies and gentlemen, this was a video about how to create a target market and how to identify your target market for your product. I hope it was helpful to you. If you don't already have a mentor or a guide or somebody that you're working with who can help walk you through these murky waters of being an entrepreneur, I would love to work with you. Go to entrepreneursrocketfuel.com apply and fill out an application, and you, you and I can chat on the phone about the products that we offer. We have masterminds, we have coaching programs, we have services. We have tools and technology that are all beneficial to entrepreneurs. And if you need somebody, if you don't already have somebody who can help you move through this process and get your business to the next level, I would love to work with you. All right, ladies and gentlemen, I'm Kimberly Haubscheid, and I'm with Entrepreneurs Rocket Fuel. And it is a genuine pleasure. I look forward to working with you. Cheers.