EMBiz: How To Choose Your Target Market

Hi everyone. Laurel Mintz here, CEO and founder of Elevate My Brand, and this is EMBiz. As you're starting to build a new company, and especially as you're launching new products or services, it's really important to understand how to choose your target market or maybe even how your target market chooses you. There are a lot of tools out there that you can use. I think I've mentioned research, sources, and surveys. There are a lot of free tools out there. 

Meet IRL

Make sure that you aren't forgetting IRL. There is a resurgence in event marketing and events in general. People want to be tactile; they want to be in front of each other. And those in-person interactions, especially as you are launching a new brand, for example, at a trade show or a conference or even something as informal as a networking event, can help you get some feedback about how your target market and audience might interact with your product or service. 

Understand Behavior

You also want to deeply understand consumption behaviors and interests. I would argue that this is something that you need to research far before you develop a product or service. In fact, a lot of companies, especially if they're launching something new and they've already been in the market, will send surveys specifically to understand behavior and interest before launching a new product. So that they're actually kind of reverse-engineering that experience. Meaning they're not saying, hey, this is a product I think I want to create or a service I think my audience needs. They're actually going to their audience and saying, hey, you kind of know our vibe and who we are. What else are you looking for in terms of marketing services or a consumer product or a flavor profile or a colorway? So it's a really great, great way to kind of reverse engineer and take the guesswork out of choosing your target market, especially as it relates to building a new product or service. 

Research Your Competitors

That also leads to being clear on identifying what the wants and needs of that audience are. We live in an era where there's so much data, and there are a lot of products, I hate to tell you that have probably been built before yours, and services, so you don't have to reinvent the wheel. And in fact, I would argue that doing research on your competitive set and understanding what their challenge points are and what their audience is saying, potentially on social media, about what isn't working, may in fact help you to better service your existing audience by solving those pain points or those wants and needs pre-launch of that product or service. 

Analyze Your Market

And then, of course, you need to determine if that market size is large. Enough to be profitable. Even if you have the best idea in the world and you have the tiniest little audience, you're not going to want to launch that product or service because it's simply not going to be profitable. I know that some of us are doing things out of the goodness of our own hearts, but most of us, especially when we're building companies and have a team and have to support that team, we want to make sure that that product or service is profitable. And so, targeting an audience that is large enough as a subsection, oftentimes in the fundraising world, we talk about TAM, SAM and SOM, the total addressable market. And your serviceable addressable market, like the actual, like microcosm of the market that you can actually, that will actually use your product or service, is a really critical step before you launch something new, because if it's too small, it's just not going to be profitable. And then you will have spun your wheels, spent a lot of money, time and effort to create a product or service that only this many people are going to use. 

So those are the best ways to pick and choose your target market, or really, I would say more reverse engineer how to best serve the audience that wants what you're creating.