The 7 Steps to Marketing Success - Know your target market

Written by Jane Gregory

Marketing can feel overwhelming when you’re starting out in business, or are a small business owner, because it’s just one of so many hats you have to wear.

Even when you find the time to think about your marketing it can be really tough to know where to start. Should you get active on social media? Spend time working on your brand? Or how about a website or paid advertising? SEO or influencers? Or should you look at ebay, Amazon or ETSY? Write a blog or post on Linkedin? Arrrgh!

With so much to think about it’s no wonder that many businesses struggle to market effectively and consistently, and that’s why we’ve put together this mini series to hopefully give you a clear track to run on. Over the next few weeks we’ll be looking at the following 7 Steps to Marketing Success:

1). Know your target market

2). Create a strong brand that will appeal to them

3). Develop powerful key messages, copy and images

4). Develop a strategic marketing plan

5). Implement your plan

6). Maximise your existing customers

7). Staying competitive

We’ll start today with the first, and fundamental of the 7 steps.

Step 1: Know Your Target Market

Before you can even begin to market your business you need a really clear, in-depth understanding of your target market. You need to know who they are, where they are, how they view themselves, their values and what matters to them. All too often I meet business owners who have only a vague notion of who their target market is. This is often because they confuse who could use/benefit from their offering, with who their offering is an ideal fit for.  Let me explain:

Take Apple, one of the biggest and most successful companies on the planet right? Yet globally they can only convince around 16% of us to buy their smartphones. Even in the US Apple can only command around 55% of the market so what’s going on? You might think it’s price, but actually many Samsung phones (Samsung are their biggest rival) are now as much if not more than the equivalent iPhone. The answer though is simple; even a company as big and successful as Apple cannot appeal to everyone. Not everyone is their target market, in fact fewer than half of us here in the UK choose to buy Apple.

So what can we learn from this? Well, just because someone could use your product or service, and could afford it, and has a need for it, doesn’t mean they’ll buy it, and that’s because they aren’t your target market. So be prepared to get rifle shot, not scattergun with defining your target market by asking yourself some searching questions such as:

- Who do I want to do business with?

- Why would someone buy my offering over my competitors?

- Where is my target market, both geographically and online?

- What values do my target audience hold dear?

- How would they describe themselves/their likes/their dislikes/their political leanings?

- What sort of house would they choose to live in?

- What are their favourite brands for shoes/clothes/ supermarket/cosmetics/cars/music etc.

- Why do they like those brands?

And on and on. If this all feels a bit daunting and you don’t know where to start we do offer a workshop called Creating a Brand, in which we cover this and lots, lots more. For now though I’ll leave you to ponder on the above, and be sure to look out for the next post which looks at creating a strong brand.

Ready to Take Control of Your Marketing?

Don’t let marketing overwhelm hold you back! signup to any of our free marketing and social media workshop on our website. You can also access our FREE 1-2-1 help and advice any time by giving our Gateway team a call on 0114 224 5000.