Why You Need to Understand Your Target Market

Today we’re talking about how to understand your target market and why that’s important. If you’re like me, you might be thinking, “I did not start a product-based business to learn about marketing. I started it because I love my product idea. Since it’s a great product, people will want to buy it.”

At least, that’s what I thought when I started. I thought, “This is an amazing product! And to sell it, it just has to be great!” But, unfortunately, people can’t buy it if they don’t know about it and they don’t understand it.

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We have to understand our target market so that we can get in front of the right people and explain our product the right way. We have to explain it in a way that is meaningful and clear as to how we’re solving their problems or improving their lives.

The Product Sessions

I have made the mistake several times thinking that in order to make more sales, I just need to have a wider range of products to offer. I need to offer other types of bags or accessories to go with it. And usually, that’s not the case. Especially when you have a warehouse full of products, you don’t need to order more products.

What you need is to learn how to better sell the products that you have. Even if you’re just starting out, let’s say you haven’t had your product made yet, you still need to really understand your target market. You’re going to be ahead of the game if you really understand the mindset behind the customer who wants your product. You’ll know better how to speak to them, what is meaningful to them, and what will catch their attention. Let’s talk about how to find out that information.

Finding Out Who Your Target Market Is

So first, let’s start with this question you can ask yourself:

Who did you make this product for? And what problem does it solve for them?

Don’t stress out too hard over this question. It’s not like it’s set in stone and you can never change it. It’s always evolving. You will continuously refine your target market as you learn and grow. So you’ll repeat this research process every so often to understand how your customer is changing.

Ideally, your target market or customer is someone that you understand, someone that you’re passionate about, and possibly you are or once were that customer who needed to have that problem solved.

So to really understand them, you’re going to have to do some research.

Research Your Customer

You want to find out the following information about your customers:

• Their demographics, like gender, age, and income.
• Their psychographics, like what their hopes, dreams, fears, and desires are.
• What is their behavior? For example: Are they parents and take care of children? Are they outdoors people? Are they medical professionals? What kind of behavior do they engage in?
• What are their pain points or problems? This is a key point you want to understand. For example: Are they having a physical problem? Are they needing help emotionally?

What Problem Are You Solving for Them?

All this information will help you to understand what problem are you solving for your target market. Hearing about your target market having pain points and that you should be solving their problem, you might be wondering, “I don’t know if my product actually solves a problem.” I thought the same thing.

Dig Deeper into the “Why”

I sell diaper bags and it wasn’t clear to me at first that my customer was necessarily in pain. But after doing some research, I narrowed it down to a couple of things. My example may help you to understand yours a little bit better:

1. My customer now has a baby and needs to carry a lot more things when they go out. They’ll need to have a changing pad, diapers, wipes, a pacifier, a change of clothes etc. A diaper bag offers a way to solve that problem and keep everything organized.
2. If you dig a little bit deeper there’s an emotional component to that problem as well. It’s stressful leaving the house with your baby and worrying that you might not have all the things your baby needs. What if you forgot the wipes? What if you forgot a change of clothes and they spit up all over themselves? Keeping a diaper bag handy and organized will ease that anxiety.
3. And if you dig even deeper (and I drew this from my own experience, as well as talking to others), once you become a parent there is a sense of a loss of identity. You often forget to take care of yourself. You’re almost this new person, in a new role, and you’re having a hard time figuring out who you are as an individual. My product helps moms understand their style and their personality better. It reminds them that they are an individual and can express their style through the bag and strap that they wear.

Using another example, say your product is hats. There’s sun in your customer’s eyes and they want to look stylish at their son’s baseball game. You solving the sun issue as well as helping them express their style, individuality, and status. That’s the problem you’re solving for them. Your product does solve a problem, whether or not it seems serious.

Get Out the Spreadsheet!

So, like all fun research projects, you’re going to make a spreadsheet. I like to use Google Sheets so I can access it from anywhere. You’ll take notes on all your findings. This will help you when you’re making your marketing content for social, for paid ads, for your website, or the copy on your product pages.

These notes will also come in handy if you ever hire an employee or a freelancer, like a social media manager, or someone to help you with copywriting. You will have this information in a cute little spreadsheet to share with them so they can really understand your target market or the niche within your target market.

Find Your Resources

You’re going to have two kinds of sources.

1. Primary Sources: Speaking directly with your customers
2. Secondary Sources: Information you find on Facebook Groups, Google, Reddit, etc.

Primary Sources

For your primary sources, you’re going to be interviewing your customers. If you don’t have any yet, you’re going to interview potential customers like friends or family who might be interested in your product. As you’re interviewing these potential customers, you might even learn that they’re not your target customer, and that’s helpful too.

If you already have customers, the people you want to interview most are your VIP customers or the ones that spend the most money with you. You can check your analytics in Google, Shopify, or Klaviyo to tell you who those people are. They are the ideal customers you want to attract, but of course interview other customers as well.

Focus Groups

There are a few options for interviewing these people. One is a focus group. You can gather a group together in person or over Zoom. If you use Zoom or any type of remote interview software I recommend also using Descript to transcribe. Descript actually transcribed this article from my podcast! It’s a really cool tool. It can transcribe live, right as you are speaking, or any audio file that you upload. Then you can edit it like a word doc, which saves so much time.

Testimonials

You can also look at any testimonials or reviews you have from your customers. Whatever they say in reviews can teach you what specifically they liked about your product, what problem is solved for them, and why they chose to buy it. Even negative reviews can give you valuable insights.

Surveys

I’ve done a couple of surveys and I found them really helpful. You create the survey in Google Forms and email out the link.

I would also recommend some kind of incentive like a discount code, early access to a product, or a chance to win a gift card to your store. For in-person focus groups, you can offer lunch or snacks. Something that would appeal to them.

What Questions to Ask

To give you some ideas for questions you want to ask either in your focus groups or in a survey, here are some from a survey I did a couple of years ago. You can use these or tweak them depending on your product and target market.

1. Tell me about yourself in a couple of sentences.
2. How many children do you have? (1, 2, 3, 4, 5+)
3. What is your age range? (18-24, 24-34, 35-44, 45-54, 55+)
4. Which _____ do you own? (products from your brand)
5. How did you hear about us? (Kickstarter, Facebook, Instagram, Word of Mouth, Pop-Up Market, YouTube)
6. What about us first caught your interest?
7. What do you think makes us different than our competitors?
8. What other brands did you consider before purchasing from us?
9. Why did you choose us?
10. Did you have any doubts, hesitations, or questions before purchasing from us? If so, what kind of research did you do?
11. How is your life better thanks to your ______ (new product)?
12. What do you use your _______ for?
13. In a few sentences, what would your dream life look like? How would it feel? Where would you live?(You could also ask, what does your dream day look like?)
14. Please list three or more of your favorite accounts to follow on Instagram.
15. Is there anything else you’d like to tell me?

Then if you use Google Forms, it creates little graphs displaying the answers. You can download that and save it for reference.

Secondary Sources

A great place to look for secondary resources is Facebook or Reddit groups. I have joined a couple of Facebook Groups where my customer hangs out. For example, there are “Buy, Sell, Trade” groups for diaper bags specifically. The moms in these groups are obsessed with diaper bags. They buy a lot of them and then resell them. And while that might not necessarily be my VIP customer, because a lot of them are looking for a deal, it does give me insight into why people love diaper bags. I like to read what they’re saying they like about certain bags and what they don’t like. I’m also in some other basic parenting groups on Facebook or there are great groups on Reddit as well.

So let’s say that your product is a mineral sunscreen, like my friend Staci sells at La Sol. You might want to join a holistic parenting Facebook group for people interested in holistic or organic skincare.

These groups can help you gain a little more insight into your customer. You can search the group for terms like “good sunscreen” and read the comments to see what people suggest and why they love those sunscreens. This will help you understand why people want that type of product.

Remember, you’re looking for the same type of information here that we are from our primary sources. You want to know your customer’s demographics, psychographics, behavior, and the problem that your product is solving for them.

Group Etiquette

I wouldn’t recommend jumping into these groups and trying to sell your product unless that is acceptable in that group’s rules. But use these groups more as a resource to find out about your customer.

Once in a “buy, sell, trade” group for diaper bags, I asked the moderators if I could pose a question about my diaper bag design. I asked what they liked about it or what they would change about it. I did get permission for that and found it to be really helpful.

Is All This Work Worth It?

Push Through the Discomfort

There may be a lot of excuses going through your mind like, “I don’t have any primary sources,” or “It’s uncomfortable!” It may be uncomfortable, especially to ask in person. It can feel really personal and vulnerable to hear feedback about your brand when put so much time and effort into it. But it’s definitely worth it to get this information and insight.

You need this information to not only help you with your product design, but also to know how to talk to your customer and where to find them.

Increase Sales

This information is essential for effective copy and content creation for Facebook or Google Ads.

Really understanding your customer will help you know where to target your ads and what content will really speak to them and get them to purchase from you.

The Product Sessions

Effective Ads

In your ads, you can portray to your target market the solution or “the dream” they’re looking for. For example, for my diaper bag customers, their dream is to look stylish and feel themselves while going out and enjoying life with their kids. I can portray that in my ads. Show your customer the final results or the outcome they’re hoping for.

Keep Refining Your Target Market

If you end up being wrong about who your target market is at first, just keep trying and narrowing it down. Like most things in life, there isn’t an obvious answer, but it takes trial and error. You will get to know your target market a little bit more every time you do research and see results from your marketing.

Free Product Launch Guide

If you enjoyed this article then you’ll love the Free Product Launch Guide that goes into more detail about creating a solid foundation for your business and making samples before you launch your product.

Links Mentioned

Google Sheets

Google Forms

Descript

La Sol mineral sunscreen

My Free Product Launch Guide