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Increase Focus On Your Target Market To Grow Your Small Business
| Guest post by: Gourab Nanda |
Article Overview: Focusing on the target market is crucial for any business to grow irrespective of its size; however as a small business it becomes even more crucial as you do not have the luxury of huge investments to experiment with marketing to larger or supplementary markets.
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Increase Focus On Your Target Market To Grow Your Small Business
Focusing on the target market is crucial for any business to grow irrespective of its size; however as a small business it becomes even more crucial as you do not have the luxury of huge investments to experiment with marketing to larger or supplementary markets.
A single look at your product or service may not be enough to decide your target market or ideal buyer, as is normally perceived by most businesses. This understanding of your ideal buyer will go on in defining your target market. For instance, a fashion boutique shouldn't target all women, rather define their ideal buyer based on the kind that they sell, if it is more suited to working women, then your target market becomes all working women rather than focusing on all women groups. So our first task is to:
Define your customer, then your market
Defining your ideal customer with as much details as possible is the key to zero in on your final target market. You have to come up with a list of characteristics defining your customer which ideally should include their age, gender, domicile, incomes, standard of living, occupations, tastes and preferences, and so on. You can also pick your existing customers and then prepare this list to give you more accuracy. This will lead to identification of the target groups which you should be focusing on.
Identify buying patterns
The next obvious step is to identify their buying patterns and possible influencers that trigger buying in them. You have to start with identifying their disposable income and follow their general purchasing habits, stores that they often visit, the kind of stuff that they buy or are willing to buy. You can also analyze your existing customers' emotional and logical reasons to buy your product or service and then emulate the same for your target market. This way you can make more sales than by just going all out with marketing your stuff.
Market to your target groups
List out all customer areas which your product or service is capable of impacting. Once you finalize on this, sequence the list starting with the most impacted area and downward. Then design your marketing efforts based on these findings and go ahead.
Give your best shot
Once you have identified these patterns, areas of impact and influencers, you can just go out and give your best shot. You need not be speculative on your marketing efforts as you are most probably hitting the right areas after your detailed analyses.
Intuit TurboTax dynamically adjusts site content based on user profiles, modeled navigation paths and search trends, according to Forrester.
You also have to use the best channels and media which your target appreciates and is often touched by.
That's it.
A Target Market the Key to Selling More Part II
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Related Forum Posts
Re: How should i promote a new website?
- ignore this message IF it's already been stated. I haven't had a chance to read all the replies and i have to jet from the office...
I suggest marketing where ever your Target Market congregates. If it's a forum of concerned parents - go there. Strike up a deal with the forum owner (JV) and have him promote it to the list of members (Integration Marketing).
If you want to go with Forums then i would partner with a parent who is a frequent poster/moderator on a particular Target Market Forum and have him/her add your link to their signature.
That was just a thought but it's not as intense once you get buy in from the Forum owner or high ranked poster/moderator.
Hope that sparks some new ideas.
My entry
- 1. The Best Business Books Ever: The 100 Most Influential Business Books You'll Never Have Time to Read
- this is a fascinating book about the history of Business theory, and I'd recommend it to anybody.
2. The Big Book of Small Business: You Don't Have to Run Your Business by the Seat of Your Pants, by Tom Gegax. Ditto.
3. PADI: The Business of Diving Book
Okay, so this book won't be of use to anyone who doesn't want to start a scuba store, but I did, and this book was of course invaluable to me in reaching that goal.
Re: Ideas For Business
- Hello Lucy,
you may consider this list for Ideas for Business: (Top 23 list)
Rank Company
1 Google
2 Genentech
3 Wegmans Food Markets
4 Container Store
5 Whole Foods Market
6 Network Appliance
7 S.C. Johnson & Son
8 Boston Consulting Grp.
9 Methodist Hospital Sys.
10 W.L. Gore & Associates
11 Cisco Systems
12 David Weekley Homes
13 Nugget Market
14 Qualcomm
15 American Century Invest.
16 Starbucks Coffee
17 Quicken Loans
18 Station Casinos
19 Alston & Bird
20 QuikTrip
21 Griffin Hospital
22 Valero Energy
23 Vision Service Plan
These maybe the coldest franchises out there:
- Here are the worst 15 performing franchises in regards to having the highest Small Business Administration (SBA) loan failure rates. The list is dotted with sub sandwich shops, fitness centers and car shops.
WORST FRANCHISE LOAN FAILURES Failure %
1 OBEE'S SOUP SALAD SUBS 55.56%
2 LADY OF AMERICA 41.94%
3 COUNTRY CLUTTER (BED & BREAKFAST) 41.18%
4 COPY CLUB 36.36%
5 ALL TUNE AND LUBE 35.71%
6 PICKERMAN'S 35.71%
7 PHILLY CONNECTION 35.59%
8 ROLY POLY ROLLED SANDWICHES 34.78%
9 COTTMAN TRANSMISSION 34.48%
10 HAIR COLOR EXPRESS 33.33%
11 LEE MYLES AUTOMOTIVE TRANSMISSIONS 33.33%
12 GODFATHER'S PIZZA 33.33%
13 SMOOTHIE FACTORY 33.33%
14 BLIMPIE 31.39%
15 GOLF U.S.A. (RETAIL GOLF EQUIP.) 30.77%
Source: Small Business Administration, SBA Loan Performance Within Franchise Code for the Period of FY 2001 - 2005
Exclusive: Interview with Results
- Hi Forum Members,
I'm helping start up a Business Coaching and Consulting company here in Toronto, Ontario, Canada (a Subsidiary of RSC Business in Los Angeles).
As a Research and Development Intern I am required to practice my listening and interview skills by surveying Small and Medium Businesses on thier Business.
This Survey is designed by RSC Business to also assist the Business being interviewed more insight into their own business.
I am looking to interview about 30 businesses across North America over the span of 3 months.
At the end of these interviews I will be publishing a report of the results and they will be made available for free to the Interviewees. The Report data will include responses from a minimum of 100 interviews.
I would like to extend this opportunity to members of the Forum.
If you would like to have this short 20-30 minute interview conducted on your Business and you reside in North America please send me an email or PM.
Please contact me at andy[at]jvprosperity[dot]com to arrange our interview and to get free access to the results when they are published.
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