The term ‘Target Market’ is very important for businesses because their success and failure will depend on how much they know or don’t know about it. There is a similar term in Marketing called ‘Target Audience’ and sometimes people do get confused between these two. They are the same for some people, but that is not true. Understanding this is very crucial for every business.

What is a Target Market?

The concept of ‘target market’ is not difficult to comprehend. It is a defined and specific segment of consumers who will be targeted by a company with their products, services and marketing campaigns. It is this group of people that are most likely to use the product or service of the business.

The target market is chosen after studying various demographics of the general population like age, gender, location, income, needs, likes, etc. People in this group have common characteristics or needs which the business decides to serve.

Target Audience explained

The term target audience is comparatively confined and narrower than the target market. It includes a group of people who are targeted by marketing messaging. They have a higher potential to reply in positive to your marketing campaigns.

Target audience are the ones who have a definitive purchasing power and hence it makes sense to direct the marketing efforts of the business towards them. For effective communication and maximum impact of your marketing messages, you should know about their needs, income, spending patterns, etc.

One example for both

Adidas is the second largest sportswear manufacturers in the world. They sell a varying range of clothing items for men, women, and kids. Their main focus area is sports jerseys and accessories in almost every sport.

To market men’s spikes shoes specifically made for football, Adidas will make advertisements to influence only those males who actively play football. It is obvious that no one else will not buy these shoes. Thus, the professional footballers around the world and other men who play semi-professional or leisure football will become a Target Market for Adidas when it comes to the Men’s spikes shoes.

Adidas is a big manufacturer and supplier of team kits for many international and club teams around the world. Let’s take an example of Manchester United FC, one of the biggest football club in the world. Adidas makes complete kits for their men’s and women’s teams and also for their academy players of various age groups from 8.

Adidas has an exclusive right to sell all the merchandise of Manchester United throughout the world. There will be different target markets for different merchandise of Manchester United. For e.g. Adidas will market the women’s jersey towards the teenage and working women. They will market the men’s jerseys towards the teenage and working men.

This won’t be the case with kids’ jerseys and other merchandise like toys. Surely, the target market is fixed – kids. But making advertisements directly for kids will be futile as kids don’t have purchasing power. Instead, the marketing will be focused on their parents as ultimately they will purchase the Manchester United merchandise for their kids. In this case, kids are the target market, but the advertisements are focused on the parents. Thus, the parents become the target audience for the kids’ merchandise.

Most of the times the target market and target audience are the same. These concepts influence all the marketing decisions of the businesses. Target audience is concerned with advertising and promotion whereas Target market is related to pricing, distribution, product development, and branding.

Conclusion

These two terms are surely interrelated but not interchangeable. Everything related to marketing is affected by a target market whereas only things related to promotion and advertising are affected by a target audience. Targeted ads are more than double effective as compared to normal ads. Knowing these two terms clearly will let the businesses serve the customers perfectly, do a lot of business, capture a niche market and result in incredibly satisfied customers with a positive response.

The post Know the difference between Target Market & Target Audience appeared first on All In One Web Development Services.