“Choose your customers, choose your future” goes a popular saying.  Defining who your customers are and how to target them for your brand determines the future of your business.  Focusing all your marketing energies on the defined set of customers is more useful than scattering it all around since everyone is not your customer base.

Many companies that do not want to invest in defining their target audiences end up with undifferentiated marketing where everybody is seen as a customer. The problem with this kind of thinking is that competitors who can target better can edge you out.

Differentiating the target audience helps you pinpoint your marketing efforts.   Segmentation of differentiation of the target market can be based on the below-discussed features:

Define primary audience

Primary and secondary audience need to be defined as well.   The primary audience is the major target of your marketing campaign while secondary is a smaller segment.  An example is the diamond or gold ring which working women aged below 40 are likely to buy, while the secondary target audience is the husband or partner who might want to gift the ring.  

Understand the demographics

Demographics include age, gender, race, income, occupation, geographic location and family size.  Younger people are the target audience for fashionable gadgets or clothes, while older people are looking for comfort oriented goods or services.  Gender is a very important factor that can guide behaviors of customers.  Health products or services can be of interest to doctors or people involved in healthcare, while seeds are what a farmer might be interested in.   The size of the family matters while targeting the audience.  For instance, bigger SUVs are better suited for larger families.  Income, obviously, guides the customer’s choices. 

Opinions and values matter!

Customer’s attitude, hobbies, interests, lifestyle, and values dictate their buying preferences and this is called psychographic segmentation.  Studies showed that customer’s attitudes involving money spending habits can be a decisive factor in buying a product.  While for some, exceeding their budget is never the option, for others, buying the best brand irrespective of the cost is important. Opinions or values matter quite a lot too, as some are against buying anything made of animal skin, while for others it could be to do with genetic modification.  Similarly, ethnicity and racial origins play a role in deciding your audience segments.  Asians may love a particular type of cuisine which is not familiar to Africans for example.

Decide the product usage and frequency

How frequently a product is likely to be used also is a factor for deciding your target audience segment.   Umbrellas and woollen mittens are used only in monsoon and winters respectively. 

Know the brand preference

Some customers identify with certain brands that are well known to them very strongly.  Brand loyalty is a huge factor that determines consumers’ behaviors.   For some others, variety is the spice of life, and they keep changing the brands just out of curiosity or for the sake of experimenting.

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