In any kind of business, you must be able to identify you target market to effectively roll out your marketing plan. One way is to make reasoned guess about why people may buy from your business should have helped you focus on who those people are. For many products/services, the market can be split up into different groups of customers; that is; different market segments. As iften-used analogy is to imagine the market as a large orange - you can peel an orange and separate it into segments. There are many ways, too, of segmenting the market.
Age
This is obvious where your product by its nature is aimed at a specific age group, for example toys, children’s clothes, holidays for the retired, etc. As a general rule, people at different ages have different needs. The retired couple may have a greater need for durability and reliability while a young couple with a family and a tight budget may have low cost as priority. Your product may appeal to different age groups for different reasons.
Sex
Will your customers be mainly women or men? Again, obvious if your product by its nature is aimed at a specific sex, for example men’s or ladies’ clothing. But pause for thought. The purchase of the product is not always the end user, for instance it is well known that many women buy clothes for their husbands, sons and boyfriends.
Location
Often, and in particular with any kind of retailing business, you can define your customers by where they live, work and where they go. For instance, a fast-food outlet would be ideally be located to clubs, bingo halls, places of work, night clubs and drinking venues and so on.
Occupation
Research has shown that there are varying degrees of correlation between a person’s occupation and tastes/attitudes. Which social class or occupational group image is your product going to appeal to?
Income
Not many businesses appeal to all ranges of income. Obviously, if your business is going to focus on high-priced quality products your customers will more than likely be in a high income bracket.
Leisure activities
With a growing number of people taking early retirement, becoming unemployed, working shorter hours, receiving longer holidays and enjoying better standards of living, the leisure industry is an ever-growing one. You may find it useful to define your customers according to their leisure activities, specially as participants in certain sports or in general, for example, ‘healthy-living types’.
