Know Your Target Market: Needs, Culture and Geography
The aim of target market analysis is to know who you sell your products to. What age ranges, which income classes, which genders? In case of children, are parents going to buy? For example, if you intend to sell baby clothes, the target market encompasses the babies' mothers. You can neither design a smart marketing plan nor have good sales unless you know the target market's details.
Customer needs are the driving force of your business. Your product must meet at least one need of the target market. Ensure that your products solve a particular problem for your customers. The more the marketing plan is developed based on needs, the more successful it will be.
Identify the culture of the market you want to sell in. Why do large multinational corporations like Apple and Microsoft have offices in the Middle East, Europe and Africa? To get acquainted with the culture of the people in those regions. Representatives of Google in Germany are all German and they are all Norwegian in Norway. Identify the behavior of the target market. For instance, who makes the purchasing decisions? In some areas where patriarchal culture is more prevalent, you need to affect the men's purchasing decisions to be able to sell your products.
Geography is also an important factor. If you are going to sell a product in Canada, is your target market Toronto or Quebec or Vancouver? One of the largest telecommunications companies in Canada is Rogers. In one of its advertisements in a neighborhood where Portuguese mostly reside, the company wrote "Little Portugal". That is, it even plans for one of Toronto's neighborhoods. This is how you can succeed.