The Target Market

THE TARGET MARKET

The focus of marketing effort is people. The goal is to reach a subset of the population who may be interested in your particular product. That group of people is your target market.

The term target market is used because that market is the target at which you aim all your marketing efforts. The market you are trying to reach are people with common characteristics that set them apart as a group. The more you know about a target market, the more precisely you can develop your marketing strategy. The table below shows some examples of market segments (or groups):

Type of Market Segment	Shared Group Characteristics
Demographic Segment	Measurable statistics such as age, income, or occupation.
Psychographic Segment	Lifestyle preferences such as music lovers or urban dwellers.
Use-based Segment	Frequency of usage such as recreational drinking or traveling.
Benefit Segment	Desire to obtain the same product benefits such as luxury, thriftiness, or comfort from food.
Geographic Segment	Location such as home address or business address.

Here are examples of target segments that can be created using the above table:

• Women business owners between the ages of 25 and 60 earning more than $25,000 annually form a demographic segment.
• People who drive compact cars due to their fuel efficiency form a benefit segment.

Design Marketing Strategies With Your Target Market In Mind
The reason you need to identify a target market is because it makes strategies for designing, pricing, distributing, promoting, positioning and improving your product, service or idea easier, more effective, and more cost-effective.

For example, if research shows that a sturdy recyclable package with blue lettering appeals to your target market and if you are focused on that target market, you would choose that type of packaging. If, however, you are product- or profit-oriented, rather than people oriented, you might choose to make the package out of plain styrofoam because it protects the product (product-oriented) or because it's cheap (profit-oriented).

Or, if you know your target market is 24- to 49-year-old men who like rhythm & blues, are frequent CD buyers, and live in urban neighborhoods, you can create an advertising message to appeal to those types of buyers. Additionally, you could buy spots on a specific radio station or TV show that appeals to this type of buyer, rather than buying general media time.

In summary, when you're making marketing decisions and you say "kinda," it's costing you money. Know whom you are aiming for (your target market) and create a strategy for a direct hit.

Target markets are groups of individuals separated by distinguishable and noticeable aspects. Target markets can be separated into:

        • Geographic segmentations, addresses (their location)

        • demographic/socio-economic segmentation (gender, age, income, occupation, education, household size, and stage in the family life cycle)

        • psychographic segmentation (similar attitudes, values, and lifestyles)

        • behavioral segmentation (occasions, degree of loyalty)

        • product-related segmentation (relationship to a product)

Strategies for Reaching Target Markets

Marketers have outlined four basic strategies to satisfy target markets: undifferentiated marketing or mass marketing, differentiated marketing, concentrated marketing, and micromarketing/ nichemarketing.

Mass marketing is a market coverage strategy in which a firm decides to ignore market segment differences and go after the whole market with one offer. It is the type of marketing (or attempting to sell through persuasion) of a product to a wide audience. The idea is to broadcast a message that will reach the largest number of people possible. Traditionally mass marketing has focused on radio, television and newspapers as the medium used to reach this broad audience.

For sales teams, one way to reach out to target markets is through direct marketing. This is done by buying consumer database based on the segmentation profiles you have defined. These database usually comes with consumer contacts (e.g. email, mobile no., home no., etc.). Caution is recommended when undertaking direct marketing efforts — check the targeted country's direct marketing laws.

Examples

CVS Caremark’s target market is women since they make up 80 percent of the pharmacy chain’s customers. CVS has marketed its stores to aid women who are constantly multitasking. They recently redesigned 1,200 of its 6,200 stores to women, including shorter wait times for prescriptions, wider and better-lit shopping aisles, and more beauty products.

The Oreo cookie is a popular cookie in the U.S., known for its two discs of chocolate with a white cream filling. The Double Stuf Oreo cookie is also marketed to U.S. consumers. However, Kraft has formulated a different version of the Oreo to target consumers in China. The Chinese version consists of four layers of long, thin biscuits coated in chocolate. Kraft CEO, Irene Rosenberg, trusts her executives who live and work in China to know what consumers would prefer in order to maximize their profits. In Germany, Kraft is appealing to the tastes and preferences of German consumers by creating dark chocolate products. It is also introducing premium instant coffee in Russia, which is a beverage that is popular to consumers.

World Wrestling Entertainment’s (WWE) target market is young males. Monday Night RAW is the number one entertainment program on primetime cable among male viewers (2 million+) including the male demographics of 18-34, 18-49 and 25-54. It is shown at 9:00 PM ET to reach its target market

Kohl’s department store has a target market consisting of consumers buying for themselves and their families.

The psychology of target marketing

A principal concept in target marketing is that those who are targeted show a strong affinity or brand loyalty to that particular brand. Target Marketing allows the marketer / sales team to customize their message to the targeted group of consumers in a more focused manner.

Research has shown that racial similarity, role congruence, labeling intensity of ethnic identification, shared knowledge and ethnic salience all promote positive effects on the target market. Research has generally shown that target marketing strategies are constructed from consumer inferences of similarities between some aspects of the advertisement (e.g., source pictured, language used, lifestyle represented) and characteristics of the consumer (e.g. reality or desire of having the represented style). Consumers are persuaded by the characteristics in the advertisement and those of the consume

Conclusion : The number of companies doing market segmentation based on the grouping variables. By classifying or segmenting the market like that, it can be said that in general the company has the motivation to maintain and improve the level of sales and, more important for companies operating in the long term sustainable and competitive

Source : http://www.smallbusinessnotes.com/marketing-your-business/target-market.html

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Target_market