Target Marketing - why research is essential

Target Marketing is one of the oldest but most essential ways to assure you go to market effectively. Without knowing the "who" the "why" and the "how" a marketing program can fail and your hard work can go unnoticed. Here is an example of research gone astray:

To make sure that this doesn't happen to you, be sure to 'profile' your target market and your marketing efforts will gain monumental increases in relevance.

What is Profiling - When creating a target market, profiling is the process in where you create an actual persona (or several) that you are marketing towards. This should be created based on your secondary research of geographic, demographic, and most importantly, psychographic data. Here is an example: "George Smith is a CEO of a software services company who makes approximately 200k per year. George believes that marketing is an import tool to generating business and works over 70 hours per week. George values hard work, honesty, family, and independence." When you create profiles it sometimes becomes easier to say "Would George read this" or "would George buy this."

To successfully "profile" your customer base, it is most important to understand their psychographics (or behaviors) that motivate them to buy. Here is a list of question you can ask that will put you on your way to creating profiles; thereby generating your target market:

1. Basic psychographics: What are their values, what do they like, how does the product fit into their lives, how do they go about their daily routine, how do others influence them, what are their personalities, attitudes, lifestyles.
2. What are their motivations and unmet needs? - How do they think and feel about the products they use and buy?
3. What do they think/feel/use the product/service? - To what extent are they aware of the brand - Do they know about the brand's special features, qualities - Do they understand how the product/service works - Do they understand the brand's superior qualities - What is their attitude toward the product category - What is their attitude toward the specific brand - To what extent do they like or desire the product or brand - Do they trust the brand to deliver the promised benefits - Do they have a preference for this brand - What image or personality do consumer's associate with the brand - What do consumer's feel the brand essence is
4. What are they guided by (one of the three orientations as follows)

• Principle Oriented - guided by abstracts, idealized criteria, rather than by feelings, events or desire for approval by others.
• Status Oriented - these consumers look for products and services that demonstrate their success to their peers.
• Action Oriented - these consumers are guided by a desire for social or physical activity, variety or risk taking

Answer these questions and you are well on your way to successful target marketing!