Target marketing (and how to identify your target audience)

Understanding and reaching the right audience is essential for any business.

That’s where target marketing comes in. This important strategy will help you focus your efforts on specific customer groups, making it easier to connect with the right people and effectively meet their needs.

In this article, we’ll explore the key aspects of effective target marketing, including steps to identify and measure your target market and the best strategies for weaving these insights into your business plan for the best results.

What is target marketing?

Target marketing is a marketing strategy that focuses on a specific group of potential customers with needs and/or desires that a business’s product or service can address. 

Target markets are also defined by four key characteristics, which are:

• Demographic: age, gender, income, education, nationality, marital status, etc.
• Geography: country, region, city or places the target market travels to
• Psychographics: lifestyle, interests, attitudes and values
• Behaviours: purchasing habits, brand loyalty and product usage

How to identify your target market

Identifying your target market is key to building a successful business strategy. When you know who your ideal customers are, you can create more focused marketing efforts, improve customer experience and boost your business growth. Here are some key steps to help you identify your target market:

Step 1. Analyse your product or service

Start by looking into the features and benefits of your product or service. Who would benefit most from what you offer? Understanding the core value of your offering – such as convenience, personalisation and improvement – will help you define who will be most interested in it.

Example: You’re offering a fitness app that tracks workouts and offers personalised nutrition plans. In this case, your target audience might include health-conscious people, fitness enthusiasts or those looking to improve their lifestyle. 

Step 2. Calculate the size of your market

Market size refers to the total number of potential customers you can have access to and the potential revenue you can make from that specific audience. Market sizing is simply crunching these numbers to measure your business’s growth potential.

To do this, you’ll need to:

• Find your total addressable market (TAM), which is the size of the market you can realistically reach and figure out your target market within that total number.
• Determine the penetration rate of your target market. This is the ratio that compares your business’s performance against the total market.
• Multiply the target market by the penetration rate to find your market size.

This is how your calculation should look:

Market sizing = Target market x market penetration rate

Calculating the size of your target market will help you estimate the potential demand for your product or service, allowing you to make more informed decisions about your marketing strategies and overall business growth.

Step 3. Conduct market research

With market research, you can gain better insight into customer needs, preferences and buying habits. You can use surveys, focus groups and other online tools to gather valuable data, helping you understand what drives customer decisions, identify trends and fine-time your marketing strategies to better meet their expectations.

Here are some useful tools you can use to get started:

• Google Analytics: tracks website traffic, user behaviour and demographics to provide insights into what customers are looking for and how they interact with your business website. Google Analytics is free, but it also offers a premium, subscription-based version (GA360) for larger enterprises, starting at around £2,500 per month.
• SurveyMonkey: a popular survey tool that allows you to create and distribute custom surveys to collect customer feedback, preferences, satisfaction and needs. You can use SurveyMonkey for free on its Basic Plan. Its other plans include Team Advantage, Team Premier and Enterprise, which start from £20 per month.
• Hotjar: provides heatmaps, session recordings, and feedback polls to help you understand how visitors engage with your website and what they find most valuable. Hotjar is free to use with its Basic Plan but costs up to $171 (approximately £140.25) per month to unlock more features.
• SEMrush: a search engine optimisation (SEO) platform that offers tools for competitive research, keyword analysis and audience insights to help you understand what potential customers are looking for and are interested in. SEMrush offers a 14-day free trial but will cost up to $499.95 (approximately £410.05) once the trial period is finished.
• Google Trends: shows the popularity of search queries over time, helping you track changes in customer interests and find trending topics relevant to your audience. Google Trends is completely free to use, so you don’t need to pay for its features.

Step 4. Segment your target market

Now that you have a better understanding of your market size and audience, it’s time to start segmenting it. This involves breaking your market down into smaller, more manageable sections based on common characteristics (e.g. demographics or behaviours). 

This will help you to create more targeted marketing strategies, ensure your messages resonate with the right groups and use your resources effectively to reach the customers who are most likely to convert.

Example: You’re marketing a premium skincare product. For this, you might segment your audience into groups based on age, skin concerns (e.g. acne or wrinkles) and income level. This way, you can create tailored messages – like targeting younger customers with acne treatments or promoting anti-ageing benefits to older customers – while using appropriate channels and pricing strategies for each group.

Step 5. Evaluate the competition

Take a look at your competitors and who they’re targeting. Start by analysing their audience and identify any gaps or underserved groups in the market that you could focus on. Make sure to pay attention to their strengths and weaknesses, and see if there are opportunities to differentiate your business. There are several competitor analysis templates you can use to help you out, including Asana, Monday.com and Smartsheet.

Example: You notice that your competitors are primarily targeting high-income customers with luxury products, but there’s a segment of middle-income consumers looking for affordable alternatives. This could be an opportunity for you to step in, as you could offer a similar high-quality product at a more accessible price point, or cater to a specific need that competitors aren’t addressing, like eco-friendly or cruelty-free options.

Step 6. Define your ideal customer

Create a detailed profile (AKA a “persona”) of your ideal customer, including demographic and psychographic information. This will guide your marketing efforts and help you focus on the customers most likely to convert.

Remember to consider factors like age, gender, location, income level, education and occupation, as well as their interests, values, lifestyles and buying motivations. Moreover, think about their pain points and how your product or service can solve the problem or improve their life. 

Step 7. Test and refine

Once you’ve identified your target market, it’s time to test your approach with marketing campaigns and analyse the results. You’ll also need to be ready to adjust your target market as you gather more feedback and insights.

Keep track of key performance indicators (KPIs) such as engagement rates, conversion rates and customer feedback to evaluate the effectiveness of your strategy. Additionally, use A/B testing to experiment with different messaging, offers and channels to see what resonates best with your audience.

Over time, you’ll need to tweak your target market as you discover new patterns, behaviours or trends. The goal is to keep improving your approach so that you can keep up with your customer’s changing needs and get the most out of your business’s potential.

Best target market strategies

Reaching the right audience with the right message is key to attracting and retaining your target market. With many marketing strategies out there, it’s easier than ever for businesses to connect with their customers in a more meaningful way. Here are some of the best marketing strategies you can use to boost your business.

1. Paid advertising (PPC and social ads)

Run ads on platforms like Google Ads, Facebook or Instagram to target specific customer segments. These platforms allow you to narrow down your target market based on demographics, interests and online behaviour, ensuring that your ads hit the right people. 

Test different ads, creatives, and messaging to see what resonates with your audience, and keep optimising them for better results. The more you experiment and adjust, the more effectively you’ll be able to drive traffic and conversions for your business.

2. Optimised organic content

Create organic content that’s valuable and relevant to your audience, such as blog posts, social media updates, videos or infographics that show you understand their needs and can solve their problems.

Make sure to optimise your content for SEO as well by using relevant keywords, adding meta descriptions and ensuring your content is easy to read and share. This will help you rank higher on search engines, making it more likely that your target audience will find it when searching for solutions.

3. Email marketing

Email marketing involves building segmented email lists and sending targeted campaigns based on customer behaviour and interest. Offering personalised promotions, product updates or content that aligns with customer preferences can help drive engagement and sales.

You can also test different subject lines, email designs and sending times to see what gets the best response. Don’t forget to include a clear call to action (CTA) at the end to guide recipients to the next step, whether that’s making a purchase or signing up for more updates.

4. Social selling

Social selling is a great way to engage with potential customers on social media platforms by initiating conversations, answering questions and providing useful information. This helps build relationships and trust, ultimately leading to more conversions.

By being active in discussions, sharing useful content and offering advice, you position yourself as a helpful resource rather than just a seller. Over time, this can turn followers into loyal customers who feel a personal connection with your brand.

5 examples of successful target marketing

Need some inspiration? Here are some real-life examples of how target marketing has been used successfully to connect with specific customer segments. These businesses have effectively tailored their strategies to meet the needs and preferences of their target audience, helping them build strong relationships, increase loyalty and achieve impressive growth.

1. Gymshark

Gymshark focuses on engaging with its audience through social media platforms like Instagram, YouTube and TikTok, where it shares fitness content, behind-the-scenes glimpses and motivational stories – helping to build a sense of connection and belonging and making customers feel like they’re part of something bigger than just buying workout clothes.

The brand’s ability to stay true to its fitness-focused lifestyle and embrace authentic, relatable influencers has created an incredibly loyal fan base, and the brand is now worth over £1 billion.

2. Flower Station

Flower Station is one of the UK’s largest online flower delivery services and a great example of target marketing in action. In its campaigns, it targeted millennial consumers who prioritise sustainability in their purchasing decisions by emphasising their core values in sustainable farming.

It also ensures all flowers meet the Fair Flowers Fair Plants (FFP) standards and use eco-friendly packaging materials. Its sustainable approach resonated well with customers, 95% of which cited sustainability as a factor in their decision to purchase from Flower Station.

3. Deliveroo

Deliveroo has used data-driven targeting to build a loyal customer base – using data on previous orders and browsing history to create personalised recommendations and promotions.

For example, it uses personalised email campaigns and push notifications to remind customers of their favourite meals or suggest new restaurants based on their previous orders. Additionally, it implemented loyalty programmes and exclusive offers for repeat customers, as well as targeting specific geographic areas by offering discounts to customers in certain postcodes to encourage loyalty.

4. Airbnb

Airbnb has leveraged target marketing by segmenting its audience based on their travel preferences and lifestyle. The company targets business travellers, adventure seekers and families with unique offerings.

For instance, “Airbnb for Work” caters to corporate clients with business travel packages, while “Airbnb Experiences” focuses on unique, local experiences for travellers looking for adventures. With this, Airbnb has successfully tailored its marketing to meet the needs of these segments, both growing its users and becoming a major player in the travel and hospitality industry.

5. Huel

Huel offers nutritionally complete meal replacements and targets health-conscious, busy individuals such as professionals, athletes, students, and fitness enthusiasts who want quick, nutritious meals without the hassle of cooking.

Huel strengthens its connection with its audience by engaging with fitness communities and health influencers on social media, sharing user testimonials, workout tips and healthy lifestyle content. By positioning itself as a solution for those seeking balanced meals on the go, Huel has built a loyal following and carved out a strong presence in the competitive health food market.

Conclusion

Target marketing is all about understanding your audience and tailoring your approach to meet their unique needs and preferences. Once you identify your ideal customers and reach them with the right message, you can successfully build stronger connections, improve engagement and ultimately drive business growth.

As long as you understand what your target audience is looking for and what they need from your business, your marketing strategy is sure to hit the mark.