The majority of small business owners often rely on a small business to market their products and services. "Working mothers at 40" or "The one who stays at home mothers" uses generic target markets, such as the following. Sometimes, you may have identified a similar target market and audience for your business. However, this is not the right way to choose a target market for your business.

Let's go through an example.

When we say "40-year-old working mothers",

• Is there something we need to understand what they like and what they don't like?
• Do you know their income level, what kind of work they do or their purchasing power?
• Is there any way of knowing their hopes and dreams?

So when you choose a generic target audience for your business, you miss out on some of the best marketing opportunities by not knowing how to handle them correctly. Therefore, you need to learn the right way to choose a target market and audience for your e-commerce business.

We will start by learning the difference between target market and target audience.

E-commerce What is the Target Market?

Target marketis the specific group of people to whom your business plans to sell your products or services. Often the target market is the people who actually consume your products. End users your target market identifying and understanding the trends is crucial for improving your products and business strategies. It can also help you identify trends and adjust your product portfolios to meet future needs. And the target market can be defined using geography, demographics and behavioral aspects.

Let's take a closer look at your target market

If you sell baby clothes, your end customers will be toddlers. If you decide to sell only to the Turkish market, you can narrow your target market even further.

By narrowing down your target market, you can anticipate the requirements to serve that target market. For example, you can add more winter clothes to your store during the winter months and set aside enough money to advertise winter clothes.

What if you also sell to tropical countries? Your customers who have not experienced winter will not find winter clothes useful at all. So they will be distracted and you will lose your relationship with them. Also, some of your marketing budget for winter clothes will be wasted on them.

Likewise, if you have a narrow target market, you can develop relationships with the end user. When you grow your business, you can of course expand your boundaries.

Another good example is trends. Trends are not similar in different markets. What is popular in Turkey may not sell well in the US market. Therefore, if you focus only on the Turkish market, you can quickly refine your product portfolio to fit Turkish trends.

What is the Target Audience in E-commerce?

Sometimes you have seen or heard people use the terms target market and target audience interchangeably. This is actually not true because target audienceis the group of people who respond to your marketing message. Sometimes they can also be end users.

If we rethink our babywear example, you can see that our target market (babies) cannot respond to our brand message. Instead, we should appeal to their parents because they are the ones who decide to buy these products. Therefore, our marketing campaigns should appeal to parents. Likewise, parents in this example is our target audience.

So if you need to sell your products, to your target audience you need to appeal effectively. To address your target audience effectively, you need to understand their wants and needs.

In many cases, the target market and target audience can be the same. It all depends on what you are selling. For example, you don't usually give kitchen knives as gifts, right? I don't. So, if you sell kitchen knives, you can assume that your target market and target audience overlap almost % 100.

Targeting is Important in E-commerce

Also, if you have any experience in advertising, you already know how difficult it is to target a general buyer.

For example, if you're selling dash cams and you target all car owners in the US, it's going to be very broad. Not every car owner needs a dash cam. If you target them all, you're basically wasting your advertising budget.

Therefore, always start with well-defined and narrow target markets and target audiences.

How to Choose a Target Market

Now that you already have your product or service, it's time to uncover your target market and target audience.

First Step Which Problem Are You Solving?

Identifying the problem you solve or the desire you fulfill makes it easier to clearly define your target market.

Do you need an example? Well, let's say you sell food. What problem are you solving? You are providing easy-to-cook but healthy food, so busy moms can save time to spend with their kids instead of cooking.

This can help you define a better buyer persona for your product. So you can easily target your marketing, products and even packaging to appeal to Hamide, a 32-year-old working mother of two. 

In the same way, if you try to understand what problem you are solving with your products or services, you can automatically identify your target market and target audience.

Step Two Narrow Your Target Market

Now that you have identified your potential customer, it is time to refine your market. To do this step, we need to know the demographic and psychographic characteristics of buyers.

Demographic information may include age, gender, location, income level, education level, marital status, etc. Psychographic information can be likes, behaviors and attitudes, etc.

Step Three Validate the Market

When you start a new job, you always assume that it will be a hit and that you will make a living from it. Don't worry; I think it's human nature, and I really like to imagine it that way. It helps you build commitment to what you're doing.

But if you are so overwhelmed that you forget to do the right market research, you will fail.

So far, you have created a buyer profile based on "your" assumptions. However, you can never guarantee that your assumption will always be correct. That's why we need to investigate.

Always question your target market and check their relevance.

Check if they can meet your price tag and buy again and again. Remember, to create a profitable business, a large portion of your sales must must come from your returning customers.

Check the competition. Is it too high or is there a way to stay above the competition? Also keep in mind that if there is no competition, it could be due to a lack of demand in that market.

Check if there are enough people in your target market segment. Otherwise, you may not be able to create a sustainable business.

Last Step Trial Run

Test proof!

Don't invest all your hard-earned money in a new business. You can try selling a few products here and there.

Remember, real testing is necessary to validate your target market.

 Of course, selling a product here does not mimic the real situation at all. With proper advertising campaigns and all, you can make a better impact in the real scenario. However, with pre-testing, you can refine and adjust your overall entry to resonate with the market.