Before launching a product or a marketing campaign, it is essential to find the right audience to suit your business. If you don’t target the right people, it can be a waste of time and money, no matter how good your product or strategy might be. The best way to do this is to Segment the Market – which you can do in five straightforward steps. 

Identify your target market 

Ask yourself who you want to target with your product or campaign? Which demographics do you think would be most likely to be interested in what you offer? 

However, at this stage, you want to steer clear of making your target market too narrow – but equally. It needs to be specific enough that it is still achievable. 

Let’s look at an example – say you are launching or promoting trainers. The people who will be interested in your product all have a shared desire in that they need a new pair of trainers. 

That said, you cannot possibly target everyone in the world who needs new shoes – but targeting only Olympic-level professional runners might be too narrow. Instead, you might identify your target market as both professional and leisure runners alike. 

Segment the market based on shared characteristics 

Next, you will take your newly-defined target audience and begin to break it down into segments. Think of it as an orange – the target market is the whole fruit, but each target market is made up of smaller sections. 

The market will be split up into groups based on shared characteristics. There are four different types of segmentation you might consider here: 

• Behavioural – The market is segmented according to shared purchasing behavioural pattern, which can be identified through a social listening tool, looking specifically at loyalty, frequency, and benefit. 
• Geographical – People in different areas will no doubt want different things from a product or brand. By looking at different continents, countries, counties, cities, and towns, you can better take this into consideration. 
•  Psychographic – This includes characteristics like class, social status, lifestyle, habits, and personality, to name a few. 
• Demographic – Perhaps the most popular segmentation technique due to its ease of implementation, consumers are grouped according to gender, age, generation, salary, level of education, religion, the makeup of their household, and so on. 

Take the time to understand the segments 

Now that you have your segments, you should take the time to understand who they are, what they want, where they are, how and why they make purchases, and when they are most reachable.

In doing so, you can begin to build up an audience profile for each segment. 

Analyse and evaluate each segment 

Taking your understanding of your segments, evaluate each one to determine which one might be the most lucrative. Things you might consider for each segment includes aspects like how big the segment is. Whether it is growing or shrinking, whether your competitors already target the same segment. What channels you would need to use to target them, and how much profit this segment might bring to your business. 

Select the segment you would like to target 

And finally, choose the segment that will be best for you to target. You can then tailor your product and marketing strategy to better attract this new target market.  

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