Written by: Kevin Gardner
Whether you run an online business or a brick and mortar store, you should know who your market is. You don't have to be a market expert, but you should understand the customers who will buy from you so that you can convince them to shop and purchase.
1. Consider Your Product or Service
If you already know what product or service you offer, you can consider that. Your business market should consist of people who want or need what you offer. Men are probably not in the market of a makeup company, and women probably aren't in the market of a barbershop. You don't need to appeal to everyone to have a successful business. While you should combine your offer with a group of people, you can get your market from your offer.
Think about the type of person who would buy from you. It doesn't matter if you already have sales or not; you can determine your market from your product or service.
2. Look at Your Competitors
You should also look at your competitors to see who their audience is. If you own a makeup company, look at who other brands target with their marketing strategy. You can do some market research and analyze the competition to see what works and what doesn't. Figure out who those other brands sell to and who buys from them. While your audience may not be identical, it can give you a good place to start.
No matter your industry, market research can help you validate your offer. If you can't find any competitors, you may have too small of a market. In that case, you can adjust your product or service to appeal to a different group of people.
3. Review Your Analytics
If you've been using social media to grow your business, check out your analytics. Sites like Instagram and Facebook let you see the people who follow you and interact with your posts. You can learn where they live, what gender and age they are and what else they like besides your business. If you notice a trend regarding interest or age, you can target those people more.
Then, you can get even more people to follow you and eventually buy your product or service. That can help you grow your business and refine your market even more. You can also check your website analytics to see who visits your blog or other webpages, even if they never buy anything from you.
4. Check Your Sales
Once you start getting sales, you can review those. You can check them to see what types of people have actually bought from you. If you only have a few customers, you may not be able to notice trends. But if you make a lot of sales, you can see where your customers overlap. You can use machine learning operations to track these customers and reach out to them online to buy from you again.
That way, you won't have to take a shot in the dark and hope you find your ideal customers. As you get more sales and release more products, you can check your sales and customer data again and adjust your business as necessary/
5. Understand Your Price Structure
You should also know how you charge customers, such as all upfront or in monthly installments. Consider if you take credit or debit cards or if you prefer another method, like PayPal. Different types of people use those various services, so that can affect your business's market.
Depending on what you offer, you should also consider your price point. If you offer a specialized service for a lot of money, your customers will need a bigger budget. And if you want to target people with smaller budgets, you'll need to offer a cheaper product or service.
Running a business can be exciting, but you need to make sure you target the right people to buy your products and services. To do that, you need to determine your business market. Keep these tips in mind when you aren't sure who your customers are.
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