Defining Your Target Audience

Tips for Performing Effective Market Research

As a small business owner, you already know how important market research is to the overall development of your business. With the large amount of information out there, one can easily become overwhelmed with trying to figure out exactly was research they should be doing and what information is crucial to their unique operation. Since doing market research and defining your target audience is so important to your business’s success, there are some tips available to help make doing research easier.

What is Your Objective?

Before beginning to collect information, it is important to think about what the overall objective of your research is. Are you looking to better define who your target market is? Are you aiming to drive more traffic to your store front or online store? Or are you simply trying to increase your overall sales? Defining what your desired end result is will help you to better choose what data you need to collect while also helping to eliminate doing research on items that will not take you to the finish line.

What is Your Competition Doing?

Part of doing market research is looking at your direct competitors in the industry. When doing research on other businesses both in-store and online, it is important to put yourself in the shoes of your customers. If possible, visit your competitor’s stores as a consumer and see what your experience is – make sure to take note of what worked, what you liked and of course what you didn’t like. By doing this, it can help to provide your customers will a better experience when they shop with you.

Who is and Who is Not Your Target Audience?

While it is important to define your target audience in order to market your business successfully, it is also important to know who is not your target to help cut down on using resources to market to the wrong people. It is okay to say that certain people are not a part of your target market – for example, if you own a dog grooming business, people who are not pet owners would obviously not benefit from your services. There is nothing wrong with defining this “non-market” and simply not marketing to them – if they do not have a need for what you’re offering, advertising would be lost on them.

Are Your Surveying Current Customers?

As we all know a happy, loyal customer is one of the best resources. Because of this, there can be a lot of value in surveying customers about their experiences and thoughts with your business. Creating this type of survey is very simple – ask customers what they like, what they do not like and what they think you could be doing better. Remember, opening up a survey gives consumers the opportunity to tell you how they really feel – make sure you are prepared for tough criticism as well as positive feedback.

Do you need help targeting your small or home business? Maybe it is time you called Stacy O’Quinn! To find out how Stacy can help you, click here.

*Photo Courtesy of TopRank Online Marketing via Creative Commons License