Identifying a target market is absolutely key for so many reasons. Just imagine if Adidas develops a line of ultra high performance swimming goggles, and when you ask them who their target market is, they say “everyone”. Do you really think everyone would be the right target audience? Of course not.
“Everyone” is no one’s target market.
First, lets analyze the term “everyone”. It basically refers to every single person on this earth. That’s a pretty bold statement to think that every baby, teenager, adult, and grandparent would need a pair of high performance swimming goggles.
To focus a bit more, they could say “everyone who swims”. Again, is that focused enough? What do you think?
Not everyone who swims, swims on a regular basis, so they may not even own a pair of goggles. And we’re not even talking about regular goggles; we’re talking about high performance swimming goggles.
So who is likely to be Adidas’s target population? If Adidas is going to get focused and specific, then the target population would need to be identified as something like…
Men and women between the age group of 20 – 35, who swim on average 4 hours or more a week, and who compete, or are in the process of training to compete, in swimming type activities.
See how that’s a bit more detailed?
When you think about your business, who is your target audience? What does your customer profile look like? Some of the first questions you should ask yourself are:
- Are you creating designs for men or women?
- How often do you anticipate the target customer to wear your designs?
- What age range does the target customer belong to?
- Which segment of the market does the target customer shop in?
- How does your target customer spend their time on weekends?
- What is the average household income?
In addition to understanding the behaviors and financial patterns of your target customer, it is also important to delve into the values and cultural implications of your customer. Understanding your customer profile is a complex topic, given how complex the people of the world and our habits have become.
We live in a world where it isn’t just enough for a customer to like something and buy it. Chances are the customer will want to know where the designs were made, who designed them, what the inspiration behind the designs are, and what the company itself stands for.
More and more consumers have become sophisticated in their buying decisions. Just like the food industry went through its ‘farm to table’ movement in the last 3 or so years, the fashion industry is slowly but surely moving in the same direction.
Before you go crazy trying to provide all the answers above to your customer, start by going back to the drawing board and asking yourself..
Which segment of the market your customer belongs to.
This answer is key in providing a good measure for all the things that need to follow in order for you to focus on your customer and build the appropriate customer branding experience.
Nishika de Rosairo spent 10 years as a Strategic Advisor to Fortune 500 / Silicon Valley companies such as Deloitte Consulting, Apple, Levi, Salesforce, Cisco and many others. Now as a CEO and Creative Director of the contemporary womenswear brand dE ROSAIRO, Nishika believes in the importance of helping others launch and grow their own dreams.