Regardless of what you may have been taught, what you may think or what you may assume, every company has a target market, every company.



I consistently hear a common statement from business owners when I present them with the question "Who is your target market?" or "Who is your ideal customer?" The answer they invariably give me is "Everyone". Everyone?

You cannot possibly appeal to everyone and trying to do so can be a huge and costly mistake. You may have a comprehensive range of products or services that may well appeal to different types of audiences.

Collectively these different target markets may make up a decent percentage of the population, but this is not the same. You cannot be all things to everyone and market your entire range to everyone. At least I'd hope you are not doing this, and if you are you need to stop doing this immediately.

Throwing Mud Is Throwing Money

Marketing your business in this way is like constantly throwing mud at a wall and waiting patiently to see what sticks and what doesn't. At some point in time some of the mud will most certainly stick, but an awful lot of mud will hit the ground too, and this is bad news for you.

The reason that this is bad news for your business is because the mud that you are throwing, including the mud that hits the ground, is your money. This is money that could have been used to keep on a member of staff that you may have had to get rid of, or perhaps money that you can use to pay yourself that hard earned bonus that you've been promising yourself. It may that you need a new company vehicle, item of machinery or equipment. Worse still, this could be someone's wages that you've had to delay paying due to a shortage of cash flow.

If you're one of the fortunate ones who's business is doing quite well at present, think how much better you could be doing by spending your marketing budget wisely, and in a more focused and targeted way. If you are currently not researching or focusing on your target audience, let me give you another analogy. Doing this is a bit like going on holiday without having a definite destination in mind, or a route planned, hotel booked or flights paid for. It is utter madness.

You'll not be surprised to see that this falls in to the bracket of the 'failure to prepare' type of approach, and you now know what the result of that is. The other aspect of this is that it really is not that difficult to do either, and so having a plan and being focused is not only essential, but something that you are more than capable of doing. There is no excuse for not doing this.

Ways In Which You Can Target The Right Market

There are different ways in which you can begin to target your market, and it begins by focussing your efforts more closely on those individuals who you believe are more likely to want to use your products or services. Perhaps the most effective place to start targeting your prospects is by their demographics - so by this I mean their age, sex, income, education, home ownership status and location to name a few.

I am also not suggesting that you target all of the above. You need to focus on one or two of these and give it your all. Once you have targeted one or two areas you can then move on to target another couple if that's appropriate, but do not try and do it all at once as you may find yourself getting nowhere fast.

Whilst this may sound like the type of strategy that 'other' businesses or 'bigger' businesses do, or perhaps something that is too much trouble than it is worth, think again. I know of many small and medium sized businesses who now use this approach and so it is most definitely something that you can be using.

It does not take as long as you may think it does to formulate an affective and targeted strategy, and the cost savings gained from a lack of wasted marketing budget can be put back into your business too. This means that it's a win-win situation for you and worth the small amount of effort involved.

In Part Two of this article I'll discuss an easy way for you to know who to target as customers, and also let you know how to market to them and what you must avoid doing in order to be successful.