Target Market and Branding

Target Market :

A target market is a group of customers a business has decided to aim its marketing efforts and ultimately its merchandise towards. A well-defined target market is the first element of a marketing strategy. Target marketing is about attracting customers who will buy what you’re selling.

Benfits of Target Market:

  • Geographic

    A geographic target market can be consumers in a city, state, or country. This is often important when it comes to international advertising. Some products may do well in some countries but not in others. For example, in Japan where they don't have ovens, companies such as Betty Crocker would not focus their products in this geographic target market.

  • Demographic/Socioeconomic

    A demographic or socioeconomic target market would focus on a specific gender, age group. income level, or education level. For example, Plato's Closet, a consignment store for young adult clothing, would focus on the teen and young adult demographic. Irish Spring would focus on a male demographic.

  • Psychographic

    A psychographic target market would be a market that has similar attitudes, values, or lifestyle. For example, the televisions station G4 is aimed at men but also gamers in the age 16-34 demographic

  • Behavioral

    The behavioral target market focuses on occasions and degree of loyalty. Facebook marketing is often focused on loyal customers with specials they can claim by getting a code on Facebook. There are also discount cards available that offer discounts by allowing shoppers to collect points each time they shop at their store.

  • Product Related Segmentation

    Product related segmentation describes a target approach for customers who already own a specific product. For example, accessories for people who own cell phones, tablets, computers, iphones, or gaming systems. Determining a target market approach to sales has many benefits. It can create a more specific marketing campaign, increase sales, and decrease the number of competitors in the market.

Identifying Target Markets

One effective type of marketing is target marketing. Targeting involves both research about potential or current customers and decision-making about how those customers might be served. This process usually involves some form of market segmentation – breaking the entire population of potential consumers down into various categories relevant to their purchasing preferences and tastes, and then identifying which categories may be interested in the product in question. For examples, a company that produces clothing for women is not generally interested in making sales to men, and a company that produces primarily expensive products usually does not attempt to sell them to consumers looking to save money.

Branding:

Branding is the building of trust with employees, customers and stakeholders.

In marketing terms, the definition of branding is the sum total of a company’s value, including products, services, people, advertising, positioning and culture. Brands give potential clients a firm idea of what they are buying before they buy it, making the purchasing decision easier. Customers trust strong brands because they know what to expect.

The term ‘brand’ should not be confused with Brand Identity or Corporate Identity. Brand Identity is an element of the brand experience and we’ll talk about brand identity below.

why Branding is Important?

At the heart of a great business is a first class product or service and every business wants to be a customer’s ‘first choice’. Building and managing a brand can play a large part in making this happen and if you want to strengthen and manage the perceptions of your business, then a strong brand is needed. Good branding elevates and differentiates your like-for-like products or services and gives your customers reason to choose you over your competitors.

Benfits of Branding

  • The most important reason is that it can help increase your sales. This means that when you need to increase your prices (because you are a small company, and there are only so many hours in the day) then your target audience will be accepting of your price increase. Think about it like this - if your company is built upon a solid brand base, you can build up to the next stage successfully without losing the trust of your customers.
  • Branding also encourages confidence and trust in your product/service - If you do experience a one-off issue with a product or service, your customers would be more likely to understand, if your brand ethos proves that you’ll do what it takes to resolve the problem.
  • Branding also encourages confidence and trust in your product/service - If you do experience a one-off issue with a product or service, your customers would be more likely to understand, if your brand ethos proves that you’ll do what it takes to resolve the problem.