When creating a start-up or new business, you need to define who your target market is. You won’t be able to target everyone and that is okay!  All you need to do is find your typical customer.

The article, How to Define Your Target Market on Inc.com explains how to focus on a specific market that is more likely to buy from you than others and gives hints in order to help you define your market.

These are some that I found the most helpful and beneficial:

1. Check out your competition.

Porta offers up great questions like “Who are your competitors targeting?” “Who are their current customers?” I think by doing this it can allow you to target what kind of competition you are up against and what type of customers that competition is attracting. If you know this, then you are ahead of the game. You can find ways to differentiate your start-up, business or product in a way that specifically attracts a market that is more likely to buy from you than the other.

2. Analyze your product/service

Porta writes, “Write out a list of each feature of your product or service. Next to each feature, list the benefits it provides (and the benefits of those benefits).” Finding the benefits of your product or service will allow you to discover its true purpose. Why are people going to want to use my product? What benefit will it provide for them? If you think about these questions you will not only be able to analyze your benefits, but also analyze how those will be seen by customers. You want your customers to benefit from your product and if they do you’ll gain more of them and make more money. Woo!

3. Choose specific demographics to target.

According to Porta, “Figure out not only who has a need for your product or service, but also who is most likely to buy it.” Some of the following factors she includes are age, location, gender, income level, education level, etc.

Unfortunately, this ends up low on the list as a priority, but it’s essential to your business. It’s important to think about your customers and how they are changing. You need to know your customers lifestyle and how your product fits into it. You need to know who you are attracting and then figure out what is best for your customers. Some questions to think about are: When will they use my product? What do they like most about my product? How do they get their media?

Much of what is provided in this article relates a lot to the article, A Crazy Idea for Funding Local News: Charge People for It on how Jessica Lessin was able to charge so much for her start-up, The Information. It is a tech news service that she charges $399 a year for. You might be saying to yourself, ‘Wow that’s a lot of money.’ And yes it is, but she targeted the right market and because of this her business is thriving.

In the article, it says, “Her idea for differentiation was to charge a lot for The Information — a subscription is $399 a year, close to what The Wall Street Journal charges for print delivery — but she would offer readers quality instead of volume.” She targeted big tech businesses that she knew would need and benefit from the scoops, analysis and most important tech stories of the day. She differentiated her product, found a target market that needed it and from that they were willing to pay. Genius. 

Define your target market and it will make it easier to figure out what media and marketing strategies you want to use to benefit your product.