Market Targeting Strategy: Customer Definition

 Market Targeting: Demographic Description

1.  Female, African American, single, 24 – 58 years old, living in the Washington DC metro area, 12+ years education, earning above $32,000 per year.

 Your market targeting has drawn a pretty specific picture of the customer, but there is more to do.

 Market Targeting:  Psychographics Description

1.  Female, African American, single, 24 – 58 years old, living in the Washington DC metro area, 12+ years education, earning above $32,000 per year.

 Health and beauty conscious, socially active, interested in losing weight, previous purchases of weight related products, stable employment, credit, address history.

 This market targeting example has accurately described the customer. Let's see how we got to know our customer.

 NOTE: By accurately defining your clients, you have also defined the size of your market. Is the market big enough for all of your competitors and you?

Market Targeting Strategy: Define Your Customers

 If your definition of your clients is a little skimpy, or if your understanding of the market demand is incomplete, you will want to get more information.

 And make no mistake - poor market targeting strategy is the number one reason why advertising fails. You need good market targeting, and it starts with a good definition of your customers.

 To better define and understand your specific customers, you might conduct an inexpensive market targeting survey. A simple survey can give you 85% accuracy for the answers you need to better define your customers and to target your advertising.

 OK – here is our opinion. Most companies get their overall market targeting strategy about half right. If you can get survey results that are 85% correct, you will be way ahead of the game. 

 And the good news is that getting your surveys and your overall market targeting 85% correct costs you much less than getting it 50% correct. That is what Professional Advertising is all about.

 Getting surveys and market targeting that are 90% correct or better also ultimately costs you less, but it is very expensive up front, and you probably don’t want to go there.

 So, if 85% accuracy on your survey works for you, it will be inexpensive to put together, and fairly simple to conduct. 

A Market Targeting Survey

 Essentially, if you get 200 people in your target group to accurately answer your questions, your results will be 85% correct. [Or to put it another way, you will get 95% certainty with a 7% variation on your customer survey.] This should be close enough for accurate market targeting.

 A word of warning: You need to talk to 200 unbiased people in your target group. 100 people are not nearly enough. The answers could be completely wrong. 200 people are your minimum. 

 And you need to conduct yourself in a professional manner. Your clients should be allowed to fill out answers to prewritten questions, or to respond to the same questions asked the same way repeatedly. You need to be impartial. Do not influence them with your behavior.

 Below are some sample questions you might ask on your market targeting survey. But don’t just pick from the list. Even a casual survey needs questions carefully written and asked in the right sequence in order to meet your specific needs and to get fairly accurate answers. You don't want bogus results that will lead you down the wrong trail. 

 So be careful, and seriously consider having a marketing professional review your survey before you start. It’s a cheap way to guarantee the quality of your research results.

Examples Of Market Targeting Survey Questions:

1. How long did you plan before making a purchase?

2. What type of research did you do? Did you check _______?

3. What did you read? [Or “Did you read ________.]

4. What was most influential resource that helped you to make you purchase decision?

5. Who else in your family helped you to make this decision?

6. Did you shop around before buying? Where? At how many locations?

7. What company services are/were the most helpful to you?

8. What services are/were lacking or needing improvement?

9. How important was the salesperson in your decision?

10. What were the main benefits that attracted you to the product?

11. What possible benefits/features are missing from the product?

12. How important were the product guarantees in your purchase decision?

13. What competitive products did you consider?

14. Why did you make your purchase when you did?

15. How far did you drive to make your purchase?

16. Would you / have you referred others to the product? If no, why not?

17. Would you / have you referred others to the company? If no, why not?

18. Are you satisfied with the product? How are you dissatisfied?

19. [Demographic questions] - Do you live in an apartment or a single family home? Are you married? Number of children? Is your family income between $X - $X,… etc.

20. Why did you buy from the company and not _____ [a competitor.]?

21. Why did you buy from _______ [the competitor] and not the company?

22. What other services would you like the company to offer?

23. What other products would you like the company to offer?

24. Would you be interested in ________ service?

25. What is a good price for ________?

26. What would you pay for ________?

27. Would your neighbor be likely to purchase ________?

28. Would your spouse be likely to purchase ________?

 This list could really go on forever. It is intended to only give possible examples of questions. You need questions that are written and ordered for you. You might need product, service, or people related questions. 

 Survey size, the number of questions, the kinds of questions, the order of the questions, the surveyor, the atmosphere, the day of the week, and even the weather can and will effect the outcome of your consumer targeting survey. Just remember that your informal survey of 200 people in your target group will only be about 85% accurate. But 85% will put you way ahead of your competition.

 Depending on the actual questions you ask, your market targeting survey results will help you to define your target audience, measure your market, plan your strategy, guide your advertising, and win you new customers. You will know who buys and why, where they get their information from, and what they are planning to do next. And that is what Professional Advertising is all about.

More Data - Keep A House List

 Excellent customer targeting also comes from tracking your current customers. Here are some ideas for gathering information:

1. What's in a phone number? With today's' powerful software, it's all you need to know about your customers. It will give you their address for future mailings, and other demographic information.

2. Start a mailing list by collecting addresses from every customer. Use fill-in coupons, charge slips, give-aways, or anything else to collect the names. You will know exactly where your customers are coming from, and you will have the hottest mailing list possible.

3. Have your sales people actively ask for customer preferences or complaints. Customers are normally very happy that you care enough to ask their opinion. 

4. Provide customer comment cards for suggestions, complaints, and feedback. Ask specific, open ended questions that will get your customers thinking. Have your sales people hand out the cards, or make them very easily available throughout your location or in your mailings.

5. Provide a free customer comment telephone line.

6. Have your technical support people conduct short surveys to collect information. 

7. Have a fun contest that rewards customers for their ideas and feedback. Offer a discount or a prize. Don't underestimate the power of what your clients are thinking. If several customers all have the same idea, you may have a winner.

8. Don't forget to ask your customers how they heard about you. It's the best way to test the effectiveness of your advertising.

9. Keep it up. Your customers change over time. Your on-going customer research will keep you in tune with your customers.

Market Targeting Strategy: Target Your Advertising

 Now that you know who and where your customers are, [and that the market is large enough], you need to economically reach them with your message. Here we will only briefly cover the subject. For a more complete review, please read Using Media More Effectively.

 The objective is to place your message in the medium that:

1. Has the highest percentage concentration of your target audience.

2. That is the most influential to your target audience.

3. That gives you the highest return on investment for your advertising.

 Your customer research should identify what newspapers and magazines your customers are reading. It will tell you where they get their information from. And it should tell you which media they trust most. Your market targeting survey and your research will point to what media is best for reaching your customers. But you still have work to do.

Here is a small example of why understanding advertising media is so important:

 It is very tempting to advertise in the specialty magazines and publications that target your specific group. But until that publisher PROVES to you exactly who is buying and reading their magazine, don’t do it. You want to see their reader demographics and their real circulation numbers first, or you want your customer survey to strongly indicate their publication. 

 This is why Testing and Tracking Ads is so incredibly important. You need to know which ads are working in what publications. For example, a broad based publication, like a metro newspaper, may have a huge circulation. It may cover your target group well, and they might trust it. But is it being read, or just skimmed over? 

 Specialty publications are more likely to be thoroughly read. You won’t know where your leads are coming from until you track them. Please read Using Media More Effectively for a lot of information on how to best reach your customers.

Ask for Help

 Doing marketing research, properly defining your customers, and clearly targeting your advertisements is a big job. But consider the alternatives - guessing whether there is a market? Guessing whom your customers are? Guessing what they want? Guessing what they are reading?

 You want to eliminate guessing completely. Professional Advertising is here to assist you. Organize your questions, and spend a little time reviewing your marketing with a professional. It’s a cheap investment for something you are basing the success of your company on. Please contact us for more information.