Target market
The people, businesses, and organizations most likely to buy a product or service; the people, businesses, and organizations a company tries to reach so these groups will purchase its goods or services.
To do so, you can start with basic market research—progressing through customer surveys, sampling, testing, or interviewing potential customers in focus groups (for more on research, see Chapter 3). These activities will tell you what actual members of your target customer base think about what you plan to offer. Or you can start testing in small markets to see the response to your offering. McDonald’s does this all the time: It offers new specialty sandwiches at a number of selected restaurants in a few locations, to gauge market reaction.
Notice the word attempt in the earlier paragraph. It’s important to understand that you may not be able to judge whether you have potential customers, based on traditional methods of market research. This especially applies if you offer a truly innovative product or service. The more innovative it is, the longer it will take for customers to become familiar with it, grow comfortable with it, and begin to buy it. It’s much easier to market ballpoint pens, for example, than to convince people to purchase a new device that allows them to input text into a computer without typing.
Add to that the fact that customers don’t always know what they want until they try it. Once, if you’d tried to sell bottled water to the mass market, they’d have laughed all the way to the kitchen tap. And almost certainly, if asked whether they would pay $70-plus a month to have a mobile phone, the vast majority of Americans would have answered with a resounding no. Even savvy businesspeople make mistakes of this kind. Every market test that 3M conducted of Post-it notes predicted failure—and now they’re indispensable. The newer something is, the longer it takes to catch on.
Who’s in the bull’s-eye?
When defining your target market, keep the image of an actual target in mind. The outermost ring of the target is the entire universe of potential customers—everyone who might ever possibly be interested in your product or service. As you get closer to the center of the target, narrow in on the customers who are more likely to actually make a purchase. The group at the center should be those whom you would most like to have as customers, whom you can reach and sell to affordably, and who are most likely to buy.
A target is something you aim at
We call it a target market for good reason—it defines exactly whom you aim to reach. The clearer the image of your target, the more likely you will hit it.
Let’s say you sell a new kind of energy bar. You know it would appeal to a whole range of people: health buffs, office workers who can’t get away for lunch, serious athletes, people who are sick and need more calories, harried moms who don’t have time to stop for a meal, and just about anyone else who could use a quick, healthy pick-me-up.
If you tried to sell to everyone who might buy your product, you’d need a huge marketing budget to make them all aware of you. You’d probably have to spend a fortune on advertising. And even then, you’d have to decide what you would say in your ads and what kinds of people and images you would feature.
Instead, you need to select one or two market segments to pursue, especially as a new company, with limited resources. But whom should you sell to? How do you target your market? You have to narrow in on the factors that best make you able to compete and to reach—and sell to—a specific type of customer. These are some of the factors you need to consider in closing in on the “bull’s-eye” in your target market:
■ The features and benefits of your product or service. Which group does your energy bar best suit?
■ The competition. Is there a segment of the market that other energy bar makers fail to reach, or underserve?
■ Market trends. Is part of the overall market for energy bars growing?
■ Most motivated buyers. Which part of the market has the most immediate need or desire to purchase energy bars?
■ Greatest ability to purchase. What type of customer most likely has the disposable income to spend on energy bars?
■ Ease of reaching your prospects. Is there a part of the market that’s easiest to tell about your energy bars, because of trade shows, media (such as magazines), or other communications directed specifically at them?
■ Ease of selling to your prospects. Do any existing distribution channels (such as specific stores, websites, or wholesalers) make it easier or less expensive for you to reach one part of your market?
In your case, let’s say you’ve developed your energy bar to have particular benefits for people engaged in sports. It happens that you’re located in a college town, filled with athletes on college teams: football, baseball, soccer, swimming, field hockey, and more. The town has even more recreational athletes: runners, swimmers, snowboarders, cyclists, skateboarders, and hikers.
Your research reveals that you can most easily and quickly reach athletes on college teams. After all, if you can only convince the coaches of each team that your energy bar can improve their players’ performances—perhaps even giving each team samples to introduce them to your products—you may be able to get their teams to make large, repeated purchases. If they like your energy bars, the star players may endorse them when you start to market to recreational athletes. And you may be able to get other college (and high school and professional) teams all over the country to buy your energy bars, too. (That’s basically how Gatorade launched in 1965. It was promoted as an energy drink for athletes, and it now serves a much broader market.)
Are you a B2C or B2B?
One key component of your company’s business model—the basic structure of how you will make money—is whether you will sell “B2B” or “B2C.”
■ B2C (BUSINESS TO CONSUMER): You sell a product or service directly to the consumer or end user.
■ B2B (BUSINESS TO BUSINESS): You sell a product or service to another business, either for the company’s own use or for that company to resell to customers.
In your marketing, you will want to emphasize different features, depending on whether yours is a B2C or a B2B business. With a B2C business, you’ll focus entirely on the personal benefits the end user will get from purchasing the product or service. With a B2C business, you’ll also have to emphasize the broader benefits the company will reap, especially when it resells your products or services to others. The focus will include how you meet a business need, such as through increased efficiency or improved profits.
End user vs. actual customer
If you were asked to say precisely who your customers, or potential customers, are, how would you answer? You might say that your customers are all the people who purchase and use your product or service—but you’d be wrong. You must carefully distinguish between your customer and the consumer or end user of your product or service. You may sell directly to your end users. Or you may sell to an intermediary—and that intermediary may well have other intermediaries.
Let’s continue with the energy bar example. Who’s your customer? Is it a coach purchasing the energy bars for an entire team? They’ll want to know not only whether