Think about anything you have ever bought because of an ad, commercial or a friend told you about it. Did it feel like the brand had you exactly in mind? That’s because you were a part of that brand’s target market — the group of people that need a product the most. All marketers must be able to identify and understand a target market. With WVU Online, it’s one of the many skills rising marketers learn.
When creating a marketing strategy, it’s crucial to identify and understand your target audience and target market Though the terms sound similar, they refer to related but distinct groups. Knowing the difference between your target audience and target market will allow you to craft messaging and campaigns tailored to each group’s needs and preferences
In this article we’ll break down the key differences between target audience and target market, the role each plays in your marketing, and tips for effectively defining each group.
What is a Target Market?
Your target market refers to the broad segment of consumers most likely to be interested in your product or service. This group shares common characteristics and problems that your offering aims to solve.
Defining your target market involves looking at demographic, geographic, behavioral, and psychographic characteristics. You may analyze factors like:
- Age
- Gender
- Location
- Income Level
- Education Level
- Marital/Family Status
- Occupation
- Interests
- Values
- Lifestyle
- Purchasing Habits
For example, a bootcamp fitness studio’s target market may be men and women aged 20-40 who live in urban areas, have middle to high incomes, and are interested in intense workouts and living an active lifestyle.
Your target market should be:
- Large enough to provide sufficient sales volume
- Specific enough to allow focused marketing efforts
- Align with your product’s purpose and business goals
Properly defining your target market provides direction for all of your strategic decisions from product development to pricing to distribution.
How to Identify Your Target Market
Effective target market research involves both analyzing quantitative data and making qualitative assessments about consumer needs and interests. Useful steps include:
- Evaluating your product/service – What problem does it solve? Who needs this solution?
- Analyzing market research data – Collect demographic, behavioral, and psychographic insights on potential customers.
- Researching the competition – Who are their target markets? Where are the gaps?
- Creating detailed buyer personas – Fictional representations of your ideal customers.
- Testing concepts – Use surveys, interviews, and focus groups to gather feedback.
Regularly re-evaluating your target market is also important as new products are launched or new opportunities emerge.
What is a Target Audience?
Your target audience is a specific segment within your broader target market that you direct specific marketing messages and campaigns toward. Identifying specific target audiences allows you to fine-tune messaging to resonate with that particular group.
For example, within their broad target market, the fitness studio may define target audiences like:
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Yoga Lovers – Women aged 25-40 who enjoy lower intensity workouts. Targeted marketing may promote new yoga classes.
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Fitness Enthusiasts – Men and women aged 20-30 who like high intensity interval training (HIIT) workouts. Marketing may highlight new HIIT classes.
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Busy Professionals – Men and women aged 30-45 who have limited time. Marketing can focus on early morning and lunch break class options.
While you typically have one overarching target market, you may have multiple target audiences you direct specific campaigns and messaging toward.
How to Identify Your Target Audience
Steps to defining your target audience include:
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Analyze your existing customer base – Identify any segments or groups with common characteristics. Look for trends or shared preferences.
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Determine who to exclude – Narrow your focus by ruling out those unlikely to respond well to marketing efforts.
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Consider campaign objectives – What are you trying to achieve with this audience? Increased sales, brand awareness, new product adoption?
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Develop detailed buyer personas – Focus on one persona at a time to create an in-depth profile.
The Importance of Target Market vs. Target Audience
Your target market shapes your overall business strategy. Key decisions like product development, pricing, distribution channels, and positioning stem from your target market definition. Marketing to your target market generates awareness and interest at a broad level.
Your target audience definitions allow you to get more precise with your messaging and creative execution. You can tailor specific campaigns and content to align with a target audience’s unique interests, pain points, and preferences. This personalization tends to achieve higher engagement and conversion rates.
- Target market = entire pool of potential customers
- Target audience = segment within target market targeted with specific messaging
While target market guides your business strategy, target audience focuses your marketing tactics.
Tips for Defining Your Target Market and Audience
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Avoid defining your target market so broadly that your messaging becomes watered down and irrelevant. Be specific enough to give direction.
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Use both data analysis and qualitative research like interviews and surveys to form a complete picture of your potential customers.
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Update target market and audience definitions regularly to account for new products, opportunities, and consumer trends.
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Involve key team members in target market/audience discussions to ensure alignment.
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Document your target market and audience profiles and share across your organization so all teams can utilize the insights.
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Start by focusing your efforts on your primary or most viable target audience(s). You can always expand from there.
Turn Insights into Action
Clearly defining both your target market and target audiences provides a strong foundation for your marketing efforts. Some key ways to apply these insights include:
Product
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Use target market research to identify unmet needs and inform product/service development.
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Consider potential target audiences and include features/benefits that appeal to each.
Pricing
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Set prices based on target market willingness/ability to pay.
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Offer tiered pricing to appeal to different target audiences.
Distribution
- Use platforms, channels, and retail outlets frequented by target market/audiences.
Promotion
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Craft messaging focused on resonating with target audience values, interests, and pain points.
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Select influencers and media outlets popular among target audiences.
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Time promotional campaigns around key dates and events relevant to each target audience.
Measurement
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Gauge campaign effectiveness by polling target audiences for feedback and reactions.
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Track sales/leads by target audience segment to identify best responding groups.
Defining your target market provides strategic direction for your business growth. Identifying specific target audiences then allows you to get tactical with your marketing execution. Keep these groups aligned with your product and business goals, and refresh the definitions as needed to have the greatest impact. With a clear focus on these two important groups, you’ll be able to craft messaging and campaigns that really resonate.
Target Market vs Target Audience
Marketers need to understand both a target market and a target audience and the differences between them.
While a target market is a broader group of people that a product or service is aimed, a target audience is the specific group of people with shared characteristics in which ads and other promotional efforts are aimed.
For a target market, demographics are an important factor in establishing a broad group of people you’re talking to, and for a target audience, psychographics are an important factor in understanding what your target market is thinking, believing, etc. A target audience cannot be identified without first identifying the target market.
Both a target market and a target audience are important for marketers, and understanding the differences between the two sets a good marketer and a great marketer apart.
Target markets help answer the question who are we marketing to? in a more general sense while target audiences help answer the question how do we reach this group?
The next step in truly understanding who you’re talking to is to create a user persona. A user persona is a profile created by marketers that represents an imaginary individual within the chosen target market and audience. Usually, you give this persona a catchy name that reflects the audience, and you fill in details about them from age and education level to their thoughts and beliefs. To create a user persona, you need the target market and target audience information you’ve already collected.
Identifying a target market and a target audience are important skills for marketers because it helps guide your next steps in the process of creating and executing a campaign.
Segment Your Target Market
Once you have an idea of who you’re talking to, it is time to segment your audience so that you can identify exactly who you’re talking to.
Using the different segmentation methods above, you can paint a picture of who you’re going to be marketing toward and communicating with.
As a reminder, demographics and geographics help set the scene of who you’re talking to, and psychographics and behavioral methods help tell you how to talk to them and why you should talk to them.
Once your audience is appropriately segmented, you can begin to think about how what you offer solves something for the target market.
Target Market vs Target Audience
What is the difference between target market vs target audience?
Another way to think about target market vs target audience is to think about it as marketing vs advertising. A target market is a foundational building block of your entire digital strategy, while a target audience is more important for your different advertising strategies.
What is a target audience?
A target audience is a segment of your target market that you want to view specific marketing messages and advertisements. In fact, target audiences are most commonly used in advertising when you need to narrow down and get specific about the people who want to advertise to.
What is an example of a target market?
Here are some examples: Starbucks: Starbucks has an easily identifiable target market they try to capture through their brand experience and marketing. The popular coffee chain targets middle and upper-middle-class men and women that enjoy café style food and beverages.
What is a target market?
These are the people who you think will search for, recognize, purchase, and use your products or services. The target market will have similar demographic features, such as: This market is the focus of your marketing activities and all of your marketing campaigns should reference it.
