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How to Write a Business Plan: Target Market Analysis

The Business Plan and the Importance of Defining Your Target Market

Susan Ward wrote about small businesses for The Balance for 18 years. She has run an IT consulting firm and designed and presented courses on how to promote small businesses.

target market of business plan

Conducting a Market Analysis

Polling your target market, writing the market analysis, online tools for market research, u.s. online market research sources, canadian online market research, local sources of market research, doing your own market research.

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The market analysis is basically the target market section of your business plan . It is a thorough examination of the ideal people to whom you intend to sell your products or services.  

Even if you intend on selling a product or service only in your community, you won't be selling that service to everyone who lives there. Knowing exactly what type(s) of people might be interested in buying your product or service and how many of them reside in your projected area or region is fundamental in creating your market analysis.

Once target market data has been established, you'll also work on sales projections within specific time frames, as well as how prospective sales might be affected by trends and policies.

Research is key and cornerstone of any solid  business plan .

Don't Skip This Step!

Don't skip market research; otherwise, you could end up starting a business that doesn't have a paying market.

Use these general terms as linchpins in research data for the market analysis section of your business plan, and to identify your target market:

But don't stop here. To succinctly define your target market, poll or survey members of your prospective clients or customers to ask specific questions directly related to your products or services. For instance, if you plan to sell computer-related services, ask questions relating to the number of computing devices your prospective customers own and how often they require servicing. If you plan on selling garden furniture and accessories, ask what kinds of garden furniture or accessories your potential customers have bought in the past, how often, and what they expect to buy within the next one, three, and five years.

Answers to these and other questions related to your market are to help you understand your market potential.

The goal of the information you collect is to help you project how much of your product or service you'll be able to sell. Review these important questions you need to try to answer using the data you collect:

  • What proportion of your target market has used a product similar to yours before?
  • How much of your product or service might your target market buy? (Estimate this in gross sales and/or in units of product/service sold.)
  • What proportion of your target market might be repeat customers?
  • How might your target market be affected by demographic shifts?
  • How might your target market be affected by economic events (e.g. a local mill closing or a big-box retailer opening locally)?
  • How might your target market be affected by larger socio-economic trends?
  • How might your target market be affected by government policies (e.g. new bylaws or changes in taxes)?

One purpose of the market analysis is to ensure you have a viable business idea.

Find Your Buying Market

Use your market research to make sure people don't just like your business idea, but they're also willing to pay for it.

If you have information suggesting that you have a large enough market to sustain your business goals, write the market analysis in the form of several short paragraphs using appropriate headings for each. If you have several target markets, you may want to number each. 

Sections of your market analysis should include:

  • Industry Description and Outlook
  • Target Market
  • Market Research Results
  • Competitive Analysis

Remember to properly cite your sources of information within the body of your market analysis as you write it. You and other readers of your business plan, such as potential investors, will need to know the sources of the statistics or opinions that you've gathered.

There are several online resources to learn if your business idea is something worth pursing, including:

  • Keyword searches can give you an overall sense of potential demand for your product or service based on the number of searches.
  • Google Trends analysis can tell you how the number of searches has changed over time.
  • Social media campaigns can give you an indication of the potential customer interest in your business idea.

The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) has information on doing your market research and analysis , as well as a list of free small business data and trends resources you can use to conduct your research. Consider these sources for data collection:

  • SBA  Business Data and Statistics  
  • The U.S. Census Bureau maintains a huge database of demographic information that is searchable by state, county, city/town, or zip code using its census data tool . Community, housing, economic, and population surveys are also available.
  • The U.S. Department of Commerce Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) has extensive statistics on the economy including consumer income/spending/consumption, business activity, GDP, and more, all of which are searchable by location.

The Government of Canada offers a guide on doing market research and tips for understanding the data you collect. Canadian data resources include:

  • Statistics Canada  offers demographic and economic data.
  • The  Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC)  offers market research and consulting with industry experts.
  • The Canada Business Network provides business information to entrepreneurs by province/territory, including market research data.

There are also a great many local resources for building target market information to explore, including:

  • Local library
  • Local Chamber of Commerce
  • Board of Trade
  • Economic Development Centre
  • Local government agent's office
  • Provincial business ministry
  • Local phone book

All of these will have information helpful in defining your target market and providing insights into trends.

The above resources are secondary sources of information, in which others have collected and compiled the data. To get specific information about your business, consider conducting your own market research . For instance, you might want to design a questionnaire and survey your target market to learn more about their habits and preferences relating to your product or service.

Market research is time-consuming but is an important step in affording your business plan validity. If you don't have the time or the research skills to thoroughly define your target market yourself, hiring a person or firm to do the research for you can be a wise investment.​

Small Business Administration. " Market Research and Competitive Analysis. " Accessed Jan. 13, 2020.

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What Is a Target Market?

  • Defining a Product's Target Market
  • 4 Target Markets

Why Are Target Markets Important?

What are market segments, target market and product sales.

  • Target Market FAQs

The Bottom Line

  • Marketing Essentials

Target Market: Definition, Purpose, Examples, Market Segments

target market of business plan

Investopedia / Mira Norian

A target market is a group of people that have been identified as the most likely potential customers for a product because of their shared characteristics, such as age, income, and lifestyle.

Identifying the target market is a key part of the decision-making process when a company designs, packages, and advertises its product.

Key Takeaways

  • A target market is a group of customers with shared demographics who have been identified as the most likely buyers of a company's product or service.
  • Identifying the target market is important in the development and implementation of a successful marketing plan for any new product.
  • The target market also can inform a product's specifications, packaging, and distribution.

How Do I Define My Product's Target Market?

Part of creating a new product is envisioning the consumers who will want it.

A new product must satisfy a need or solve a problem, or both. That need or problem is probably not universal unless it reaches the level of indoor plumbing. More likely, it is needed by a subset of consumers, such as environmentally-conscious vegetarians, or science nerds, or outdoor enthusiasts. It may appeal to a teenager or a middle-aged professional, a bargain-hunter or a snob.

Envisioning your likely target market is part of the process of creating and refining a product, and informs decisions about its packaging, marketing, and placement.

What Are the 4 Target Markets?

Marketing professionals divide consumers into four major segments:

Demographic: These are the main characteristics that define your target market. Everyone can be identified as belonging to a specific age group, income level, gender, occupation, and education level.

Geographic: This segment is increasingly relevant in the era of globalization. Regional preferences need to be taken into account.

Psychographic: This segment goes beyond the basics of demographics to consider lifestyle, attitudes, interests, and values.

Behavioral: This is the one segment that relies on research into the decisions of a company's current customers. New products may be introduced based on research into the proven appeal of past products.

What Is an Example of a Target Market?

Each of the four target markets can be used to consider who the customer for a new product is.

For example, there are an estimated 100,000 Italian restaurants in the U.S. Clearly, they have enormous appeal.

But a corner pizza joint might appeal mostly, although by no means entirely, to a younger and more budget-conscious consumer, while an old-fashioned white tablecloth place might be dominated by older folks and families who live in the neighborhood. Meanwhile, a newer place down the street might cater to an upscale and trend-conscious crowd who will travel a good distance for the restaurant's innovative menu and fancy wine list.

In each successful case, a savvy business person has consciously considered the ideal target market for the restaurant and has tweaked the menu, decor, and advertising strategy to appeal to that market.

Few products today are designed to appeal to absolutely everyone. The Aveda Rosemary Mint Bath Bar, available for $23 a bar at Aveda beauty stores, is marketed to the upscale and eco-conscious woman who will pay extra for quality. Cle de Peau Beaute Synactif Soap retails for $110 a bar and is marketed to wealthy, fashion-conscious women who are willing to pay a premium for a luxury product. An eight-pack of Dial soap costs under $5 on Amazon, and it is known to get the job done.

Part of the success of selling a good or service is knowing to whom it will appeal and who will ultimately buy it. Its user base can grow over time through additional marketing, advertising, and word of mouth.

That's why businesses spend a lot of time and money in defining their initial target markets, and why they follow through with special offers, social media campaigns, and specialized advertising.

Dividing a target market into segments means grouping the population according to the key characteristics that drive their spending decisions. Some of these are gender, age, income level, race, education level, religion, marital status, and geographic location.

Consumers with the same demographics tend to value the same products and services, which is why narrowing down the segments is one of the most important factors in determining target markets.

For example, people who fall into a higher income bracket may be more likely to buy specialty coffee from Starbucks instead of Dunkin' Donuts. The parent companies of both of these brands need to know that in order to decide where to locate their stores, where to stock their products, and where to advertise their brand.

A business may have more than one target market—a primary target market, which is the main focus, and a secondary target market, which is smaller but has growth potential. Toy commercials are targeted directly to children. Their parents are the secondary market.

Identifying the target market is an essential part of a product development plan, along with manufacturing, distribution, price, and promotion planning. The target market determines significant factors about the product itself. A company may tweak certain aspects of a product, such as the amount of sugar in a soft drink or the style of the packaging, so that it appeals more to consumers in its target group.

As a company’s product sales grow, it may expand its target market internationally. International expansion allows a company to reach a broader subset of its target market in other regions of the world.

In addition to international expansion, a company may find its domestic target market expands as its products gain more traction in the marketplace. Expanding a product's target market is a revenue opportunity worth pursuing.

How Detailed Should a Target Market Be?

It depends. Broadly speaking, a product may be designed for a mass market or a niche market, and a niche market can be a very small group indeed, especially in a product's early introductory phase.

Some carbonated beverages aim for a practically universal market. Coca-Cola had to branch out to 200 markets abroad to continue growing its customer base. Gatorade is owned by Pepsi Cola, but the brand is positioned as a drink for athletes. The soda brand Poppi, which is branded as a "Healthy, Sparkling, Prebiotic Soda with Real Fruit Juice, Gut Health, and Immunity Benefits," is clearly aimed at a younger, healthier, and more trend-conscious target market.

Consider a casual apparel company that is working to build its distribution channels abroad. In order to determine where its apparel will be most successful, it conducts some research to identify its primary target market. It discovers that the people most likely to buy their products are middle-class women between the ages of 35 and 55 who live in cold climates.

It's reasonable for the company to focus its advertising efforts on northern European websites that have a strong female audience.

But first, the company may consider how its apparel can be most attractive to that target market. It may revise its styles and colors and tweak its advertising strategy to optimize its appeal to this new prospective market.

What Is the Purpose of a Target Market?

A target market defines a product as well as vice versa.

Once a target market is identified, it can influence a product's design, packaging, price, promotion, and distribution.

A product aimed at men won't be packaged in pink plastic. A luxury cosmetic won't be sold in a pharmacy. An expensive pair of shoes comes with a branded cloth drawstring bag as well as a shoebox. All of those factors are signals to the target audience that they have found the right product.

Identifying the target market is part of the process of creating and refining a new product.

A target market can be translated into a profile of the consumer to whom a product is most likely to appeal. The profile considers four main characteristics of that person: demographic, geographic, psychographic, and behavioral.

University Lab Partners. " 4 Key Types of Market Segmentation: Everything You Need to Know ."

National Geographic. " How Italian Cuisine Became as American as Apple Pie ."

Aveda. " Rosemary Mint Bath Bar ."

Cle de Peau. " Synactif Soap ."

Amazon. " Dial Antibacterial Bar Soap, Gold, 4 Ounce (Pack of 8) ."

Chron. " What Is a Secondary Target Audience? "

Coca-Cola Australia. " Coca-Cola: From Start-Up to Global Enterprise ."

Pepsico Partners. " Gatorade ."

DrinkPoppi. " Home ."

target market of business plan

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How to Write a Market Analysis for a Business Plan

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A lot of preparation goes into starting a business before you can open your doors to the public or launch your online store. One of your first steps should be to write a business plan . A business plan will serve as your roadmap when building your business.

Within your business plan, there’s an important section you should pay careful attention to: your market analysis. Your market analysis helps you understand your target market and how you can thrive within it.

Simply put, your market analysis shows that you’ve done your research. It also contributes to your marketing strategy by defining your target customer and researching their buying habits. Overall, a market analysis will yield invaluable data if you have limited knowledge about your market, the market has fierce competition, and if you require a business loan. In this guide, we'll explore how to conduct your own market analysis.

How to conduct a market analysis: A step-by-step guide

In your market analysis, you can expect to cover the following:

Industry outlook

Target market

Market value

Competition

Barriers to entry

Let’s dive into an in-depth look into each section:

Step 1: Define your objective

Before you begin your market analysis, it’s important to define your objective for writing a market analysis. Are you writing it for internal purposes or for external purposes?

If you were doing a market analysis for internal purposes, you might be brainstorming new products to launch or adjusting your marketing tactics. An example of an external purpose might be that you need a market analysis to get approved for a business loan .

The comprehensiveness of your market analysis will depend on your objective. If you’re preparing for a new product launch, you might focus more heavily on researching the competition. A market analysis for a loan approval would require heavy data and research into market size and growth, share potential, and pricing.

Step 2: Provide an industry outlook

An industry outlook is a general direction of where your industry is heading. Lenders want to know whether you’re targeting a growing industry or declining industry. For example, if you’re looking to sell VCRs in 2020, it’s unlikely that your business will succeed.

Starting your market analysis with an industry outlook offers a preliminary view of the market and what to expect in your market analysis. When writing this section, you'll want to include:

Market size

Are you chasing big markets or are you targeting very niche markets? If you’re targeting a niche market, are there enough customers to support your business and buy your product?

Product life cycle

If you develop a product, what will its life cycle look like? Lenders want an overview of how your product will come into fruition after it’s developed and launched. In this section, you can discuss your product’s:

Research and development

Projected growth

How do you see your company performing over time? Calculating your year-over-year growth will help you and lenders see how your business has grown thus far. Calculating your projected growth shows how your business will fare in future projected market conditions.

Step 3: Determine your target market

This section of your market analysis is dedicated to your potential customer. Who is your ideal target customer? How can you cater your product to serve them specifically?

Don’t make the mistake of wanting to sell your product to everybody. Your target customer should be specific. For example, if you’re selling mittens, you wouldn’t want to market to warmer climates like Hawaii. You should target customers who live in colder regions. The more nuanced your target market is, the more information you’ll have to inform your business and marketing strategy.

With that in mind, your target market section should include the following points:

Demographics

This is where you leave nothing to mystery about your ideal customer. You want to know every aspect of your customer so you can best serve them. Dedicate time to researching the following demographics:

Income level

Create a customer persona

Creating a customer persona can help you better understand your customer. It can be easier to market to a person than data on paper. You can give this persona a name, background, and job. Mold this persona into your target customer.

What are your customer’s pain points? How do these pain points influence how they buy products? What matters most to them? Why do they choose one brand over another?

Research and supporting material

Information without data are just claims. To add credibility to your market analysis, you need to include data. Some methods for collecting data include:

Target group surveys

Focus groups

Reading reviews

Feedback surveys

You can also consult resources online. For example, the U.S. Census Bureau can help you find demographics in calculating your market share. The U.S. Department of Commerce and the U.S. Small Business Administration also offer general data that can help you research your target industry.

Step 4: Calculate market value

You can use either top-down analysis or bottom-up analysis to calculate an estimate of your market value.

A top-down analysis tends to be the easier option of the two. It requires for you to calculate the entire market and then estimate how much of a share you expect your business to get. For example, let’s assume your target market consists of 100,000 people. If you’re optimistic and manage to get 1% of that market, you can expect to make 1,000 sales.

A bottom-up analysis is more data-driven and requires more research. You calculate the individual factors of your business and then estimate how high you can scale them to arrive at a projected market share. Some factors to consider when doing a bottom-up analysis include:

Where products are sold

Who your competition is

The price per unit

How many consumers you expect to reach

The average amount a customer would buy over time

While a bottom-up analysis requires more data than a top-down analysis, you can usually arrive at a more accurate calculation.

Step 5: Get to know your competition

Before you start a business, you need to research the level of competition within your market. Are there certain companies getting the lion’s share of the market? How can you position yourself to stand out from the competition?

There are two types of competitors that you should be aware of: direct competitors and indirect competitors.

Direct competitors are other businesses who sell the same product as you. If you and the company across town both sell apples, you are direct competitors.

An indirect competitor sells a different but similar product to yours. If that company across town sells oranges instead, they are an indirect competitor. Apples and oranges are different but they still target a similar market: people who eat fruits.

Also, here are some questions you want to answer when writing this section of your market analysis:

What are your competitor’s strengths?

What are your competitor’s weaknesses?

How can you cover your competitor’s weaknesses in your own business?

How can you solve the same problems better or differently than your competitors?

How can you leverage technology to better serve your customers?

How big of a threat are your competitors if you open your business?

Step 6: Identify your barriers

Writing a market analysis can help you identify some glaring barriers to starting your business. Researching these barriers will help you avoid any costly legal or business mistakes down the line. Some entry barriers to address in your marketing analysis include:

Technology: How rapid is technology advancing and can it render your product obsolete within the next five years?

Branding: You need to establish your brand identity to stand out in a saturated market.

Cost of entry: Startup costs, like renting a space and hiring employees, are expensive. Also, specialty equipment often comes with hefty price tags. (Consider researching equipment financing to help finance these purchases.)

Location: You need to secure a prime location if you’re opening a physical store.

Competition: A market with fierce competition can be a steep uphill battle (like attempting to go toe-to-toe with Apple or Amazon).

Step 7: Know the regulations

When starting a business, it’s your responsibility to research governmental and state business regulations within your market. Some regulations to keep in mind include (but aren’t limited to):

Employment and labor laws

Advertising

Environmental regulations

If you’re a newer entrepreneur and this is your first business, this part can be daunting so you might want to consult with a business attorney. A legal professional will help you identify the legal requirements specific to your business. You can also check online legal help sites like LegalZoom or Rocket Lawyer.

Tips when writing your market analysis

We wouldn’t be surprised if you feel overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information needed in a market analysis. Keep in mind, though, this research is key to launching a successful business. You don’t want to cut corners, but here are a few tips to help you out when writing your market analysis:

Use visual aids

Nobody likes 30 pages of nothing but text. Using visual aids can break up those text blocks, making your market analysis more visually appealing. When discussing statistics and metrics, charts and graphs will help you better communicate your data.

Include a summary

If you’ve ever read an article from an academic journal, you’ll notice that writers include an abstract that offers the reader a preview.

Use this same tactic when writing your market analysis. It will prime the reader of your market highlights before they dive into the hard data.

Get to the point

It’s better to keep your market analysis concise than to stuff it with fluff and repetition. You’ll want to present your data, analyze it, and then tie it back into how your business can thrive within your target market.

Revisit your market analysis regularly

Markets are always changing and it's important that your business changes with your target market. Revisiting your market analysis ensures that your business operations align with changing market conditions. The best businesses are the ones that can adapt.

Why should you write a market analysis?

Your market analysis helps you look at factors within your market to determine if it’s a good fit for your business model. A market analysis will help you:

1. Learn how to analyze the market need

Markets are always shifting and it’s a good idea to identify current and projected market conditions. These trends will help you understand the size of your market and whether there are paying customers waiting for you. Doing a market analysis helps you confirm that your target market is a lucrative market.

2. Learn about your customers

The best way to serve your customer is to understand them. A market analysis will examine your customer’s buying habits, pain points, and desires. This information will aid you in developing a business that addresses those points.

3. Get approved for a business loan

Starting a business, especially if it’s your first one, requires startup funding. A good first step is to apply for a business loan with your bank or other financial institution.

A thorough market analysis shows that you’re professional, prepared, and worth the investment from lenders. This preparation inspires confidence within the lender that you can build a business and repay the loan.

4. Beat the competition

Your research will offer valuable insight and certain advantages that the competition might not have. For example, thoroughly understanding your customer’s pain points and desires will help you develop a superior product or service than your competitors. If your business is already up and running, an updated market analysis can upgrade your marketing strategy or help you launch a new product.

Final thoughts

There is a saying that the first step to cutting down a tree is to sharpen an axe. In other words, preparation is the key to success. In business, preparation increases the chances that your business will succeed, even in a competitive market.

The market analysis section of your business plan separates the entrepreneurs who have done their homework from those who haven’t. Now that you’ve learned how to write a market analysis, it’s time for you to sharpen your axe and grow a successful business. And keep in mind, if you need help crafting your business plan, you can always turn to business plan software or a free template to help you stay organized.

This article originally appeared on JustBusiness, a subsidiary of NerdWallet.

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Target Market: Examples, What it is & How to Define it

target market

What is a target market?

What is a target audience, why define your target market , how to define your target market: , target market examples, target marketing plan example, summary .

Every business that’s ever existed dreams of a huge customer base and constant sales with a bottom line that wows… But if you’re continuously falling short of your sales and growth targets, then it might be time to check if you’re selling and marketing your products or services to the right people. 

Rather than falling into the trap of thinking you can appeal to everyone all at once (spoiler alert: you can’t), having a narrow target market and audience ensures your products, services, and brand attract and maintain the customers who are going to be interested and (hopefully) make lots of purchases. 

In this article, we’re going to help you finally make those profits you’ve dreamed of by clarifying exactly what is meant by “target market” and “target audience.” With this information, you’ll be able to build the right buyer personas for your products and services, so you can build your small business into the empire you deserve. 

First things first, “target market” is a phrase you’ll hear almost daily in the business world. But what does it really mean? 

Well, your target market is the people who are going to be buying your products or services. By establishing your target market early on, you can tailor your products accordingly and ensure you’re only spending your precious advertising budget marketing to people who will actually benefit from what you’re selling. 

Target markets are usually defined by three aspects: 

  • Demographics: Things like the age, gender, income, marital status, ethnicity, employment status, etc., of your buyers. 
  • Geographics: Where your customers are located (this can be as wide as entire continents, or even just a single neighborhood or street). 
  • Psychographics: What drives your customers? What are their likes and dislikes? What problems do they face in their lives? 

By figuring out who your customers are, you’ll be in a better place to market your products… And you could even use this information during upgrades to ensure you’re continuously providing a valuable benefit. 

paper people

Target markets and target audiences can frequently get confused and overlap, but they relate to different people, and it’s essential to have a clear distinction between the two. 

While your target market is the end consumer, your target audience is who your brand should be focusing on when advertising.

A good example of this would be for a child-aged target market. Let’s use McDonald’s Happy Meals as an example…

While the Happy Meals are clearly made for kids, the target audience for this product would be the adults responsible for the children. These adults are the ones who choose what the kids eat and will usually be the ones buying the Happy Meals. 

You can do it too.

Because McDonald’s has clearly identified their target market vs. target audience, you’ll notice adverts for Happy Meals tend to focus on aspects that the target market (kids) wouldn’t be that interested in… Like the nutrition value of the meals, for example. 

Another brilliant example of a target market vs. a target audience is the 2010 Old Spice advert, The man your man could smell like . When trying to appeal to a younger audience, Proctor & Gamble (the advertising team behind this campaign along with Nike’s Just Do It ) discovered around 60% of men’s body washes and deodorants were purchased by women. 

Taking advantage of this information, P&G decided to aim subsequent Old Spice marketing efforts at women with the famous ad featuring Isaiah Mustafa. Like McDonald’s, they successfully identified a difference between their target market (men aged 18 – 35) and their target audience (the wives and girlfriends of these men). 

In other words, your target market is whom you’re selling to. Your target audience is whom you’re advertising to.

happy meals

So, now we know what the difference is between a target market and a target audience… But the question still remains, why bother? Surely, marketing to everyone is casting a wider net, and you’ve got more chances of gathering customers? 

Any angler will be able to tell you that a wide net isn’t all it’s cracked up to be when catching fish. Sure, you might get one or two valuable catches in a large net, but you’re more likely to end up with a barrel of fish nobody wants. 

To really catch fish, you need the right bait, the right equipment, and to be fishing in the right places. 

And suddenly, the metaphor of casting a large net continues to be 100% applicable to the world of marketing. 

In other words, if you aspire to make everyone a potential customer, you’re less likely to gain attention from people who will actually benefit from and buy your products and services. Instead, focus your marketing efforts on a clearly defined section of the market, and you’ll attract more valuable customers who will help your business grow. 

In addition to attracting the right people, defining your target market and audience early on will allow you to: 

  • Develop the product line by solving specific needs
  • Set the right prices
  • Determine the perfect marketing channels
  • Find the best features to highlight
  • Determine the right keywords and SEO criteria
  • And much more.

A narrow, specific target audience and market also ensures you’re not spending too much time/money casting a wide net… Enabling you to convert far greater numbers of potential customers with considerably lower overheads. 

fishing a boy and grandfather

When it’s time to define your target market, you might struggle to know where to start at first. But figuring out the right market segment to advertise to doesn’t need to be difficult if you break it down. 

Remember, by marketing to a specific group of people, you can focus on getting the language, tone of voice, and content just right. This enables your message to get across more clearly and will make your audience more likely to buy your product or service.  

In addition, having well-defined target customers enables you to start a more genuine and compelling conversation with that group of consumers. And once you’ve cultivated a genuine relationship, you’re more likely to benefit from loyal customers and word-of-mouth recommendations. 

meeting discussion  table

To get started building a definition of your target customers, think about the following: 

1. Identify the key benefits of your business

Once you’ve established the critical benefits of your business, you’ll probably find your target market becomes clear fairly quickly. 

As marketer Philip Kotler said, “authentic marketing is not the art of selling what you make but knowing what to make. It is the art of identifying and understanding customer needs and creating solutions…” 

Theodore Levitt elaborates on this with… “people don’t want to buy a quarter-inch drill. They want to buy a quarter-inch hole.” 

As Kotler and Levitt identify, it’s not the features of your product or service that will sell… It’s the benefits these provide. For example, if you’re selling exercise equipment, the benefits might include improving customers’ self-image, physical health, mental wellbeing, confidence, and empowerment. These benefits will be more compelling to most target customers than a list of specs. 

To identify the key benefits of your product or service, ask yourself the following questions: 

  • What problem(s) do you solve for people? 
  • What need(s) do you meet? 
  • What desire(s) are you fulfilling?

2. Identify who will benefit most from the above. 

Once you’ve identified the key benefits of your product or service, you can start thinking about who would benefit most from these features and who would be most likely to buy. This will help you narrow down the demographics for your target market. 

For example, if you’re selling at-home exercise equipment, the people who will benefit most from this could be middle-aged, overweight men who don’t have time to go to the gym or young women who don’t feel comfortable in a standard gym. 

Think about who your product or service helps the most, and start narrowing them down. 

Consider the age, location, gender, income, and any other critical demographics of the market segment you’ve identified and make a note of these. 

3. Refine your target market 

Once you’ve established the key demographics of the group of consumers who are most likely to benefit from your products or services, it’s time to define your target market even further by building user personas for your customers. 

These personas will include the demographics like age range, location, etc., that you defined in step 2 but adds in psychographics. 

Psychographics include more personal information about your market segment. These will include things like: 

  • The customer’s likes and dislikes
  • Hobbies and interests
  • Daily routines
  • Pain-points

You can collect this information through a variety of means. If you have established customers already, asking them to provide feedback can be invaluable to businesses. Otherwise, surveys, polls on social media, or any other market research will help you establish precisely who you’re selling to. 

4. Stay objective

It might surprise you to realize that this is probably the most challenging step in defining your target market and audience… But it’s also one of the most critical. 

When researching your potential customers, you must always stay objective and avoid assumptions, particularly when matching your product’s key benefits with a specific group of people. 

In fact, CBInsights discovered that approximately 35% of start-up businesses fail due to a lack of market need. 

Even if you think your product is fantastic, you’re likely to fail if you don’t accurately identify a need, want, or desire and address that. 

Segway is an excellent example of a business failing due to a poorly defined target market and a product that didn’t fulfill a need. 

segway

5. Evaluate the segments 

It’s critical to remember that just because someone says they would buy your product or service doesn’t mean they actually will . 

You need to ensure the market segment you’ve identified is a viable customer group by asking the following questions: 

  • Is this group large enough to sustain the business? 
  • Does the market segment have sufficient income to afford the products and services being sold? 
  • Will these people make multiple purchases, or will you constantly need to be attracting new customers? 
  • Are other brands targeting the same market segment? Why/why not? 
  • What separates your brand from similar companies, products, and services? 
  • How accessible is the target market you’ve identified?

Following any research into this evaluation, it’s vital to create real-life tests to directly engage with your prospective market. 

6. Identify who influences the buying decision. 

Once you’ve defined your target market, it’s time to turn your attention to your target audience. Remember, your target market is the group of people who might want to buy your product. Your target audience relates to the people who will be making or influencing the purchase decision. 

The most obvious example of this is how products for children need to be marketed to parents or guardians, as kids don’t have any buying power themselves. But this can also take into account a far wider group of people as purchase decisions are rarely made in a vacuum. 

Consider the friends and family of your target customers. Would a good/bad word from a sibling change your potential customer’s mind about buying? If it’s a big-ticket item, would your customer want to check with their spouse or partner first? How can you convince these ‘influencers’ that your products and services are worth buying? 

If you’re providing products and services for B2B clients, this can be even more complicated as purchases may need to be approved by multiple people before they can go ahead. 

7. Check your competitors 

As part of your marketing strategy, you should have completed a SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) of your business. Now, it’s time to ensure you’ve done the same for your competition, starting with the top stores on Shopify and working back to your closer competitors. 

Use social media, Google, and customer research to determine what target audiences your competitors are focusing on and whether those individuals align with your business. 

If you’re advertising to the same group of people, figure out what these people find great/bad about the competition and use this to guide your own marketing efforts. 

Now you know how to define your specific target market, it can be helpful to see how other companies have used targeting research to build a detailed target audience profile. These well-known brands offer a fantastic target marketing plan example that you can use to bring these concepts to life and translate them into your own marketing strategy. 

nike

Nike provides an excellent target market demographics example. Once, Nike marketed to professional athletes only but changed its business model to accommodate a broader, more approachable audience with the Just Do It campaign. 

As part of the rebranding, Nike considered the benefits of its sports apparel, shoes, accessories, and equipment and who these benefits would most appeal to. 

Their targeting includes a young age range, people interested in getting fitter, individuals with some disposable income to spend on high-quality products. 

To further narrow down the target market, Nike specifically focuses on aspiring athletes and runners in most advertising campaigns and utilizes an inspiring, motivational, inclusive tone of voice that appeals to a younger audience who are ready to push beyond their limitations. 

netflix

We know what you’re thinking… “but Netflix targets everyone?!” While this may be partially true, have you ever taken a look at someone else’s Netflix account and noticed how different it looks from your own? 

With detailed algorithms and substantial customer research, Netflix intelligently targets individual preferences in its marketing strategy, ensuring each person receives a well-defined and highly tailored experience. 

It’s also worth noting that Netflix started as a DVD delivery service, mailing DVDs to rent to its customers. As online streaming took over, Netflix analyzed its customers’ needs and made the switch to provide an online service. Now offering apps and even downloadable, offline shows and movies, still highly tailored to individual preferences. 

vans

This cool and quirky footwear brand is another excellent example of target marketing at work. The brand appeals to “misfits and rebels,” with a daredevil outlook that may not attract every shoe-wearing citizen but is sufficiently focused so that rebels worldwide can’t get enough. 

Like Netflix, Vans allowed the customers to guide their business decision and utilized highly targeted market research to ensure every product matched their audiences’ desires perfectly. 

markers notes targeting plan

Before we leave you, we thought it might be helpful to include a detailed target marketing plan example. This fictitious target market for a software company will give you an idea of the demographics you should include when analyzing your customer base, so you can see precisely how to define your target market in a B2B scenario: 

Key Demographics: 

  • Age range: 35-45 years old. 
  • Gender: 65% male, 35% female
  • Common job titles: Chief financial officer, head of digital, senior accountant

Key Psychographics: 

  • Values: Job security, affordability, financial growth
  • Likes to review all data and complete a full pros/cons analysis before making decisions
  • Strives for an improvement to their work/life balance
  • Skeptical of any brand that promises to solve all their problems or too-good-to-be-true offers. 

Challenges and pain points

  • Concerned that their current software can’t keep up with increasing demands and improvements to modern technology. 
  • Aware that a lack of third-party integration means internal processes cannot be performed efficiently. 
  • Demands from bosses and/or shareholders create a stressful work environment with little work/life balance. 

Preferred communication channels

  • Professional social media platforms such as LinkedIn
  • Regularly browse the internet for the latest industry news 

Preferred content

  • White papers with plenty of detail
  • Case studies
  • News articles

Now you know how to find your target markets, the difference between a target audience and a target market, and some real-life examples of how to write a target market strategy. You should be well on your way to attracting and maintaining a loyal, engaged customer base. 

But it’s important to remember that figuring out who your ideal customers are is only the first step. Once you’ve identified the age, location, gender, interests, pain points, and other aspects of your target market sample, it’s vital to focus on the communication channels markets can use to communicate with these segments. 

Google Analytics is one of the best tools for determining where your target market/audience hangs out online. Using this information, you can streamline your marketing efforts on relevant social media platforms, email campaigns, or even offline advertising. 

Be sure to focus on getting the tone of voice and language just right in any messaging, and have high-quality landing pages that reflect your audience’s interests to retain the best customers and keep them coming back for more. 

Once you’ve done this, you’re sure to experience market growth like never before.

growth

How do you define a target market? 

A target market is a segment of people who are likely to benefit from the products or services your business is selling. You can narrow this group into as many smaller segments as you like to help your marketers find the perfect methods to get your messaging across.

Target markets are usually defined by key demographics, including age range, gender, income, geographic location, and more. They will be further narrowed down with psychographics, including likes and dislikes, key values, pain points, lifestyle, etc.

How do you define a target market vs. target audience? 

Target markets take into account the people you’re selling to at market. However, a target audience will be the person or people who make the purchase decision and are the ones you’re advertising to.

A good example of the difference between these two aspects is a product for children. While kids aged 3-4 might be the target market, the target audience would be the parents or guardians, as these are the ones who make the purchase decision.

Old Spice is another good target market vs. target audience profile example. Although the product is for men, the man your man could smell like campaign utilized messaging for the end-users’ wives, girlfriends, and partners. The market was men; the audience was the women buying the product on their behalf.

How do I identify my target market? 

Plenty of research is required to accurately identify the right target market for your products or services. Conversations with any customers you already have are invaluable. You can utilize things like social media polls, surveys, or even email research to help you determine your target market and existing customers.

Google Analytics is also an incredibly valuable tool when establishing your target market. This will help you see where your audience spends their time and what keywords they’re searching for that might be relevant to your messaging.

Suppose Facebook is an appropriate channel for your marketers to use. In that case, Facebook’s custom audience tools can also be handy for your market research and to aid you with narrowing down your market segments.

How do you write a target market statement?

Take a look at our target market statement examples above for an overview of the things you should include in a target marketing strategy. As a summary, you should be looking to include aspects such as:

  • Geographical location
  • Aspirations
  • Current challenges
  • Hobbies/interests

12 Marketing Strategy Examples, How to Create One + Tips

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target market of business plan

I'm a content manager at sixads. I'm fiery about marketing, writing and traveling, so you can often find me scribbling away in some unknown corner of the world. If you want to know more ways to increase traffic and attract buyers to your online store get in touch with sixads on one of the channels bellow.

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BUSINESS STRATEGIES

What is a target market and how to define yours

  • Rebecca Strehlow
  • Dec 7, 2023
  • 10 min read

target market

One of the first steps in starting a business is determining your target market. This step alone can be the basis for what products you create, how you brand your business and ultimately who you market to.

With that in mind, you’ll need to develop assets that resonate with your target market. Start by creating a business website that represents your business and uses language and visuals relatable to your audience. Consider what niche you can fit into and what separates your business from the competition. From there you can create messaging, branding and advertising designed for your target market and convert more leads into customers.

Keep reading to learn more about defining your target market and gain expert tips on how to implement this targeting throughout your business strategy.

What is a target market?

Your target market is your product’s primary consumer. Once you know who this is, you can tailor your branding and marketing efforts toward them.

A target market can be composed of a broad group, such as married men over 40 in the US, or it can be quite narrow, such as urban, health-conscious, vegetarian women in Texas. Your market will depend on the particular consumer needs your product addresses.

The three key aspects of a target market include:

Demographics: Age, gender, income, education or employment status.

Geographics: Primary location of your market.

Personality traits: What they like and dislike, as well as where they shop and their favorite brands.

To pinpoint your target market, you’ll need to analyze data about your product niche, your customers and your competitors. You'll also need to understand more about the specific types of target markets in more detail.

What are the types of target markets?

In general there are several ways business owners can categorize target markets. For the most part target markets are divided into the following four main types: demographic, geographic, psychographic, and behavioral.

Demographic

This type of target market is defined by a number of demographic variables such as age, gender, income, education, and family size. Companies might target specific demographic groups based on their buying habits and purchasing power.

Geographic target markets are defined, as the name suggests, by geographic variables such as region, state, city and population density.

Psychographic

Psychographic variables such as lifestyle, values, personality, and social class make up the definition of this target market.

This type of target market is defined by consumer behavior, such as the benefits sought, usage rate, and customer loyalty.

It's important to note that a business may choose to target one or multiple types of target markets, depending on their specific business objectives and marketing strategies.

Why are target markets important?

Understanding your target market is a crucial aspect of developing a successful business. Below we explore the main reasons why understanding your target market is so important in order to ensure a profitable business.

Better customer segmentation : Understanding your target market allows you to segment your customers more effectively, which in turn helps you tailor your marketing messages and products to meet their specific needs and preferences.

Increased focus and efficiency: Focusing on a specific target market allows you to be more efficient with marketing resources while avoiding wasting time and money on efforts that are not likely to reach or resonate with your target audience.

Improved brand reputation: Understanding your target market can help you establish and maintain a positive brand reputation by allowing you to align your brand with the values and interests of your market.

Increased customer loyalty : By understanding your target market and delivering products and services that meet their needs and expectations, you will foster a loyal customer base that is more likely to recommend your brand to others.

Better decision making: Understanding your target market provides valuable insights that can inform important business decisions, such as product development, pricing strategies and distribution channels for marketing efforts.

Target market vs. target audience?

Often used interchangeably, target market and target audience are not the same thing. Your target market is the end consumer while your target audience is to whom your company advertises. While your target market might fall into your target audience, who you advertise to may not, in the end, be the one who consumes the product.

To clarify, let’s look at an example: Kids toys, for example, have a very clear target market: children. In addition, toys are often marketed toward children who identify with a specific gender category. Nevertheless, kids don’t purchase their toys, their parents do. So toy companies must focus their advertising strategies on parents (the target audience) to sell toys for their kids (the target market).

For example, Generation Alpha , kids born between 2010 and 2025 with millennial parents, play with much different toys than their parents did because millennials have different consumer preferences than their Baby Boomer parents. Rather than shopping in big-box stores for brightly-colored toy packages, millennial parents are more likely to purchase clean, minimalistic, and gender-inclusive toys from Instagram ads or Amazon. Therefore, toy companies are using Millennial preferences (the target audience) to sell toys to their Generation Alpha kids (the target market).

zuri and jane toys

How to determine your target market

Gather consumer data

Know your product’s benefits

Investigate your competitors

Segment your audience

Write a target market statement

Refine your research

01. Gather consumer data

The first step in defining your target market is to learn more about your customers. Even if you’ve just started an online store and don’t have many customers yet, these practices will come in handy further down the line.

Start by gathering information about current and past buyers and try to identify characteristics that they have in common. This data will help you market your product to people with similar interests. If you are still in the early stages of your business and haven’t started selling your product, look at competitor markets and use that information to determine your target market.

Using website analytics tools, social media and email marketing analytics platforms, here are some data points you’ll want to consider:

Age: Do your customers share a common decade or generation? Are they millennials, older adults, or something in between?

Location: Where in the world do most of your customers live? Consider the different cities, countries, and regions.

Language: Which languages do your customers speak? Remember that your customers’ language isn’t necessarily the dominant language of their country.

Spending power: Consider socioeconomic factors that may be affecting your customers. How much money are they willing or able to spend?

Hobbies and career: What do your customers enjoy doing? What are their professions, and what do they do in their spare time?

Stage of life: Where are your customers in life? Are they college students? New parents? Retirees?

If your company is B2B rather than B2C , you’ll want to look for characteristics of companies, rather than individual consumers. These traits include:

Business size: Are the businesses that buy from you small, medium, or large?

Location: Where are these businesses physically located?

Vertical: Which industries are most of these businesses in?

Budget: How have these businesses raised money ? Consider how much they’d be willing or able to spend on products like yours.

Be sure to track this information in an orderly manner so that you can keep your findings organized and easily identify trends. Analyzing these trends will allow you to identify shared characteristics within your customer base. These characteristics will inform your inbound marketing efforts and steer your strategy toward your target audience.

02. Know your product benefits

The next step is to understand your consumers’ motivation behind purchasing your product, rather than a competitor. You can learn this information by speaking to your customers directly, asking for testimonials, and by doing in depth competitor research to understand the difference between your product and theirs.

Get to know the benefits—and not just the features—of your product or service. The features are your product’s characteristics. For example, if your business sells suitcases, you might describe your product as being small, compact and having multiple compartments. Your product’s benefits, on the other hand, are the advantages it brings to your customers. Think about how your product makes someone’s life better or easier. The compact, multi-compartment suitcase offers the benefits of being easy to carry and pack as a carry-on.

It’s vital to understanding how your product fulfills its target market’s specific needs. For the suitcase company discussed above, for instance, the target market would be people who benefit from a lightweight, carry-on suitcase—such as business travelers who take short, frequent trips.

03. Investigate your competitors

Hone in on your target market even further by taking a look at which your competitors are targeting. Of course you won't have access to their customer analytics data, but you can understand their customers with a SWOT analysis .

Take a deep dive into competitor websites, blogs and social channels. Consider who their target market is based on their website content, content marketing strategy, and social media branding. You’ll likely be able to infer details about their audience based on their brand language and tone. You can also check for comments on their social media pages to see which types of people are engaging with their posts.

Take an especially close look at their most successful social media and blog posts. Do these pieces of content have anything in common in terms of their offering or branding? Which interests or needs do they address? Use this information to consider what kinds of qualities or advantages appeal most to consumers within your industry.

04. Segment your audience

At this point, you’ve gathered some information about the characteristics and interests of your target audience. Now, it’s time to use that information to clearly define your customer types. This is going to form the basis of your target market.

The best way to do this is through market segmentation. This involves dividing your customers into different groups, or segments, based on their shared qualities.

You can divide your customers based on:

Geography: Physical location, whether it’s your own city or a different part of the world. Note that if your customers are located around the world, you may need to create a multilingual website, as well as localized ads and marketing materials.

Demographics: Characteristics such as age, gender, race or ethnicity, income level, or marital status.

Psychographics: Inner qualities such as personality, lifestyle, or personal values. These are often a product of geographic and demographic factors such as location, generation, or stage of life.

Behavior: Perceived qualities based on online behavior, such as buyer readiness or frequency of use.

If you’re a B2B company, use similar characteristics but apply them to business. Consider firm demographics—known as firmographics—such as industry, location, customer size, business structure, and performance.

To gain a deeper understanding of your segments, you can also create buyer personas. Also called user personas, buyer personas are imaginary characters with traits and behaviors similar to those of typical customers. Ultimately, these fictional characters represent your target market, helping you gain insights into the needs, desires, and lifestyles of your actual customers.

05. Write a target market statement

Now that you’ve determined the defining features of your audience, it’s time to put your findings on paper. Write a target market statement that focuses on the most important audience characteristics you’ve identified in your research. Your statement should include:

Demographic information about your target market, such as gender and age.

Geographic location of your target market.

Key interests of your target market.

Then, sum it up in a single sentence. For example:

“Our target market is women in their 30s and 40s who live in the United States and enjoy casual, comfortable fashion.”

Doing this will keep your brand identity and marketing efforts consistent. It will also come in useful as you adapt your company’s mission statement to be as relevant as possible for your audience.

06. Refine your research

Defining your target market is based on thorough research, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to be perfect the first time around. Even after you identify your market, you’ll still need to continually test and experiment to get an increasingly precise picture of your customers. Staying on top of your market research can also help you keep up with the times, as consumer interests change over the years with technological developments, generational attitudes and passing trends.

To narrow in on your audience, you’ll need to assess your business success and test your targeting efforts. Take a look at who is actually buying from you and which specific products or services they are purchasing. Try to understand how you can adapt future product development or modify your branding or marketing efforts to better fit your customer base.

Utilize A/B testing with your marketing efforts to test the same ad on different audiences and see which version performs better. Alternatively, you can develop two different creatives, each with their own look and language and compare your audience’s responses. Based on the results, you might need to either adjust your business strategy or revise your target market statement. The bottom line is to build a brand that resonates strongly with your audience. Remember, the more targeted your content, the more effective your lead generation strategies—and the more customers you’ll bring to your brand.

What are examples of a target market?

These website examples clearly cater to their target markets. Take note of the phrases and visuals these websites use.

01. Amanda Darby

Let’s take a look at how nutritionist Amanda Darby appeals to her target market. She aims to address people looking to make healthier food and dieting choices. To do this, she’s created a website that fosters a sense of joy and personal empowerment around food. The light and airy background, coupled with the cheerful images of cooking and eating, instantly makes it clear that she targets people looking for a healthy lifestyle.

She also hones in on her audience even further, using phrases that directly appeal to middle-aged women. In the section of her homepage that discusses her nutrition coaching: “You will be the mom who loves food, her body, and knows life isn't perfect, but is perfectly happy living the life she has vs. waiting for the life she will have when she reaches her goal weight.” By directly addressing the concerns of her target market, Amanda helps her audience feel heard and understood. This strengthens their trust in her brand and persuades them that she is the right coach for their needs.

amanda darby

02. Curtinsmith Guitars

From the very first image that appears across the top of this website, it’s clear that Curtinsmith Guitars is crafting something unique. By displaying photographs of their workshop and describing their guitars as “custom” and “handmade,” they directly single out a target market of those looking for unique, one-of-a-kind guitars. This target market is likely musical, appreciative of craftsmanship and not afraid to spend their money on their passions.

The About Us section of the site confirms this targeting. The owner, Paul, writes, “I find it quite profound to create something which, in itself, will continue to create. It is an absolute joy crafting these instruments and it is my prayer that they continue to be a joy for those who play them and listen to them, for many generations.”

In this statement, the brand makes it clear that it targets musicians who value the creative process. They also allude to the quality of their product, portraying them as long-lasting heirlooms with sentimental value.

curtinsmith guitars

03. Lima Cakes

Sona Karapetyan uses her artistic vision to create showstopping celebratory cakes. The About section on her website says that Sona “was always experimenting with graphic art & design” and, “When Sona decided to embark on the cake art journey, she experimented with different textures, shapes and architectural elements to create a unique design language.” It also states that she never creates the same cake twice so each cake is unique to each client.

Her neutral-colored web design and sophisticated copy narrow her target market down to mature individuals who appreciate art. Her website also features images of her cakes, clearly displaying her skills to her potential customers. The prices of her custom-made cakes will reflect the effort that goes into each one. These details show that she likely targets an educated, older, affluent crowd with an appreciation for modern art and design.

lima cakes

What are market segments?

Market segments are subgroups within a larger market that share specific characteristics and needs. These characteristics can include demographics, lifestyle, interests, behavior and purchasing patterns. By identifying and understanding these segments, businesses can tailor their marketing messages, products and services to better resonate with each group. This allows for more targeted and effective marketing efforts.

Target market FAQ

How detailed should a target market be.

The level of detail for a target market depends on your specific business and goals. However, it should be defined enough to create targeted marketing campaigns and avoid wasting resources. Consider including demographic information (age, gender, income, etc.), psychographics (lifestyle, values, interests), and behavioral factors (purchasing habits, media consumption). While details are important, avoid over-segmentation, as it can limit your reach and marketing effectiveness.

What is an example of a target market?

What is the purpose of a target market, what is the best target market, related posts.

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What Is a Target Market (And How to Find Yours)

The better you understand your target market, the more you’ll be able to focus your ads and reach the audience most likely to convert into customers.

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Table of Contents

Your target market sets the tone for your entire marketing strategy — from how you develop and name your products or services right through to the marketing channels you use to promote them.

Here’s a hint before we dig in: Your target market is not “everyone” ( unless you’re Google ). Your task in defining your target market is to identify and understand a smaller, relevant niche so you can dominate it. It’s all about narrowing your focus while expanding your reach.

In this guide, we’ll help you learn who’s already interacting with your business and your competitors, then use that information to develop a clear target market as you build your brand .

Bonus: Get the free template to easily craft a detailed profile of your ideal customer and/or target audience.

What is a target market?

A target market is the specific group of people you want to reach with your marketing message . They are the people who are most likely to buy your products or services, and they are united by some common characteristics, like demographics and behaviors.

The more clearly you define your target market, the better you can understand how and where to reach your ideal potential customers. You can start with broad categories like millennials or single dads, but you need to get much more detailed than that to achieve the best possible conversion rates.

Don’t be afraid to get highly specific. This is all about targeting your marketing efforts effectively, not stopping people from buying your product.

People who are not included in your targeted marketing can still buy from you—they’re just not your top focus when crafting your marketing strategy. You can’t target everyone, but you can sell to everyone.

Your target market should be based on research, not a gut feeling . You need to go after the people who really want to buy from you, even if they’re not the customers you originally set out to reach.

What is target market segmentation?

Target market segmentation is the process of dividing your target market into smaller, more specific groups. It allows you to create a more relevant marketing message for each group.

Remember — you can’t be all things to all people. But you can be different things to different groups of people.

For example, as a vegetarian, I’ve eaten plenty of Impossible Burgers. I’m definitely a target customer. But vegetarians are a surprisingly small target market segment for Impossible Foods: only 10% of their customer base.

That’s why Impossible Foods’ first national advertising campaign was definitely not targeted at me:

https://www.facebook.com/ImpossibleFoods/videos/158779836141556

The target market segment for this ad campaign was “meat eaters who haven’t yet tried Impossible products.”

Vegetarians and meat eaters have different reasons for eating plant-based burgers and want different things from the experience. Target market segmentation ensures the company reaches the right audience with the right message.

How to define your target market

Step 1. compile data on your current customers.

A great first step in figuring out who most wants to buy from you is to identify who is already using your products or services. Once you understand the defining characteristics of your existing customer base, you can go after more people like that.

Depending on how someone connects with your business, you might have only a little information about them, or a lot.

This doesn’t mean you should add a lot of questions to your order or opt-in process just for audience research purposes — this can annoy customers and result in abandoned shopping carts.

But do be sure to use the information you naturally acquire to understand trends and averages .

Your CRM is a goldmine here. UTM parameters combined with Google Analytics can also provide useful information about your customers.

Some data points you might want to consider are:

  • Age: You don’t need to get too specific here. It won’t likely make a difference whether your average customer is 24 or 27. But knowing which decade of life your customers are in can be very useful.
  • Location (and time zone): Where in the world do your existing customers live? In addition to understanding which geographic areas to target, this helps you figure out what hours are most important for your customer service and sales reps to be online, and what time you should schedule your social ads and posts to ensure best visibility.
  • Language: Don’t assume your customers speak the same language you do. And don’t assume they speak the dominant language of their (or your) current physical location.
  • Spending power and patterns: How much money do your current customers have to spend? How do they approach purchases in your price category?
  • Interests: What do your customers like to do, besides using your products or services? What TV shows do they watch? What other businesses do they interact with?
  • Challenges: What pain points are your customers facing? Do you understand how your product or service helps them address those challenges?
  • Stage of life: Are your customers likely to be college students? New parents? Parents of teens? Retirees?

If you’re selling B2B products, your categories will look a little different. You might want to collect information about the size of businesses that buy from you, and information about the titles of the people who tend to make the buying decisions. Are you marketing to the CEO? The CTO? The social marketing manager?

Step 2. Incorporate social data

Social media analytics can be a great way of filling out the picture of your target market. They help you understand who’s interacting with your social accounts, even if those people are not yet customers.

These people are interested in your brand. Social analytics can provide a lot of information that might help you understand why. You’ll also learn about potential market segments you may not have thought to target before.

You can also use social listening to help identify the people who are talking about you and your product on social media, even if they don’t follow you.

If you want to reach your target market with social ads, lookalike audiences are an easy way to reach more people who share characteristics with your best customers.

Step 3. Check out the competition

Now that you know who’s already interacting with your business and buying your products or services, it’s time to see who’s engaging with the competition.

Knowing what your competitors are up to can help you answer some key questions:

  • Are your competitors going after the same target market segments as you are?
  • Are they reaching segments you hadn’t thought to consider?
  • How are they positioning themselves?

Our guide on how to do competitor research on social media walks you through the best ways to use social tools to gather competitor insights.

You won’t be able to get detailed audience information about the people interacting with your competitors, but you’ll be able to get a general sense of the approach they’re taking and whether it’s allowing them to create engagement online.

This analysis will help you understand which markets competitors are targeting and whether their efforts appear to be effective for those segments.

Step 4. Clarify the value of your product or service

This comes down to the key distinction all marketers must understand between features and benefits. You can list the features of your product all day long, but no one will be convinced to buy from you unless you can explain the benefits .

Features are what your product is or does. The benefits are the results. How does your product make someone’s life easier, or better, or just more interesting?

If you don’t already have a clear list of the benefits of your product, it’s time to start brainstorming now. As you create your benefit statements, you’ll also by default be stating some basic information about your target audience.

For example, if your service helps people find someone to look after their pets while they’re away, you can be pretty confident that your market will have two main segments: (1) pet owners and (2) existing or potential pet-sitters.

If you’re not sure exactly how customers benefit from using your products, why not ask them in a survey, or even a social media poll ?

You might find that people use your products or services for purposes you haven’t even thought of. That might, in turn, change how you perceive your target market for future sales.

Step 5. Create a target market statement

Now it’s time to boil everything you’ve discovered so far into one simple statement that defines your target market. This is actually the first step in creating a brand positioning statement , but that’s a project for another day. For now, let’s stick to creating a statement that clearly defines your target market.

For example, here’s Zipcar’s brand positioning statement, as cited in the classic marketing text Kellogg on Marketing . We’re interested in the first part of the statement, which defines the target market:

“To urban-dwelling, educated, techno-savvy consumers who worry about the environment that future generations will inherit, Zipcar is the car-sharing service that lets you save money and reduce your carbon footprint, making you feel you’ve made a smart, responsible choice that demonstrates your commitment to protecting the environment.”

Zipcar is not targeting all residents of a particular city. They’re not even targeting all the people in a given city who don’t own a car. They’re specifically targeting people who:

  • live in an urban area
  • have a certain degree of education
  • are comfortable with technology
  • are concerned about the environment

These are all interests and behaviors that Zipcar can specifically target using social content and social ads .

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Zipcar (@zipcar)

They also help to guide the company’s overall approach to its service, as evidenced by the rest of the positioning statement.

When crafting your target market statement, try to incorporate the most important demographic and behavior characteristics you’ve identified. For example:

Our target market is [gender(s)] aged [age range], who live in [place or type of place], and like to [activity].

Don’t feel like you need to stick to these particular identifiers. Maybe gender is irrelevant for your market, but you have three or four key behaviors to incorporate in your statement.

If you offer multiple products or services, you might need to create a target market statement for each market segment. In this case, it’s useful to define buyer personas .

Target market examples

Nike target market.

Despite its current market domination, Nike actually provides a great example of what can go wrong when you try to target too general of an audience.

Nike started out as a running shoe company. In the 1980s, they tried to expand their target market beyond runners to include anyone who wanted comfortable shoes. They launched a line of casual shoes, and it flopped.

Here’s the thing: Non-runners were already buying Nike shoes to walk to work, or for other casual purposes. Nike spotted this as an opportunity to expand. Instead, they diluted their brand promise, and the company actually started losing money.

The lesson, according to company founder Phil Knight?

“Ultimately, we determined that we wanted Nike to be the world’s best sports and fitness company and the Nike brand to represent sports and fitness activities. Once you say that, you have focus.”

While Nike would certainly not stop casual users from buying its shoes, the company refocused everything from product development to marketing on its target market: athletes of all levels, from pro to beer league.

In fact, understanding the importance of focus led Nike into a highly effective strategy of target market segmentation. The brand has multiple target markets for its various product lines.

On social, that means they use multiple accounts to reach their different target market groups. No one account tries to be all things to all customers.

The post below from Nike’s general Instagram account targets the segment of their audience interested in fashion and lifestyle products.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Nike Basketball (@nikebasketball)

But the company also has channels dedicated to specific sports. Here’s an example of the content they create for runners:

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Nike Running (@nikerunning)

And that means … the brand has been able to return to marketing its products specifically for casual wear. It just reaches the casual target market through different channels than it uses for its athletic markets. It’s a different target market segment, and a different marketing message

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Nike Sportswear (@nikesportswear)

Like Nike, you might have one target market, or many, depending on the size of your brand. Remember that you can only speak effectively to one target market segment at a time.

Takasa target market

Takasa is a Canadian retail homewares company that specializes in organic, fair trade bedding and bath linens.

Here’s their target market as defined by founders Ruby and Kuljit Rakhra:

“ Our target market is the LOHAS segment, which means Family Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability. This group of people is already living, or striving to live, a green lifestyle … We know our target demo is very conscious about what their families consume, as well as the impact this consumption has on the environment.”

In their social content, they clearly identify the product features most important to their target market: organic materials and fair labor practices.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Organic + Fairtrade Home Goods (@takasa.co)

The City of Port Alberni’s target market

Why does a city need a target market? In Port Alberni’s case, the city is working to “attract investment, business opportunities and new residents.” To that end, they launched a rebranding and marketing campaign.

And a marketing campaign, of course, needs a target market. Here’s how the city defined it:

“ Our target market is young people and young families 25 to 45 years of age who are entrepreneurial-minded, family oriented, adventurous, enjoy an active lifestyle, desire an opportunity to contribute to growth, well-educated and skilled professionals or tradespeople.”

In their social content, they highlight recreational opportunities aimed at those active and adventurous young families, even using the handle @PlayinPA.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by City of Port Alberni (@playinpa)

White House Black Market target market

White House Black Market is a women’s fashion brand. Here’s how they describe their target customer on their website :

“Our customer … is strong yet subtle, modern yet timeless, hard-working yet easy-going.”

That’s a fine description when talking directly to customers. But the marketing department needs a target market definition with a few more specifics. Here’s the detailed target market as described by the company’s former president:

“ Our target market is women [with a] median age of about 45 … at a stage in her life where she’s very busy, primarily a working woman. She’s probably got one or two kids left at home [or] … her children may be out of the house and on their way to college.”

With their hashtag #WHBMPowerhouse, they focus on this key demographic of women in their 40s with busy home lives and careers.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by White House Black Market (@whbm)

Use Hootsuite to better target your audience on social media. Create, schedule, and publish posts to every network, get demographic data, performance reports, and more. Try it free today.

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Christina Newberry is an award-winning writer and editor whose greatest passions include food, travel, urban gardening, and the Oxford comma—not necessarily in that order.

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How to Write a Target Market Analysis

Last Updated: January 22, 2024 References

This article was co-authored by Archana Ramamoorthy, MS . Archana Ramamoorthy is the Chief Technology Officer, North America at Workday She is a product ninja, security advocate, and on a quest to enable more inclusion in the tech industry. Archana received her BS from SRM University and MS from Duke University and has been working in product management for over 8 years. There are 7 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been viewed 351,901 times.

Writing a strong target market analysis can help you use your marketing funds more effectively. By analyzing your audience, you identify the most important characteristics about them and use that information to promote your product or service directly to them. A strong target market analysis should help you or your company connect with the individuals who are most likely to use your product. It may also increase your sales and product or service visibility.

Compiling Data for a Target Market Analysis

Step 1 Identify your target market.

  • Identifying your target market will help you later decide how to advertise and maximize the value of your marketing resources.

Archana Ramamoorthy, MS

  • U.S. Census Bureau, www.census.gov
  • www.business.gov, contains links to state and national data about businesses
  • Bureau of Labor Statistics, www.bls.gov
  • U.S. Department of Commerce, www.commerce.gov

Step 3 Study your target market demographically.

  • Demographic information can often be found online as a compilation of different reports from the federal government. Check the Census Bureau and Commerce Department websites. You can find a useful resource from the U.S. Census Bureau at https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/table/PST045215/00 .
  • If you are marketing to other businesses, demographic information includes where the business is located, how many branches they have, their annual revenue, number of employees, industry, and how long the business has been running. You can usually gather this data from annual reports, which are public record. Contact the secretary of state's office in your state and ask for corporations data.

Step 4 Describe your target market psychographically.

  • Psychographic information is often found through surveys or focus groups. Though you can set these up yourself, it would be beneficial to hire a marketing research firm to help you structure the surveys, word questions carefully, and engage with focus groups in an effective way. [6] X Research source
  • For businesses, psychographic information can include the company's values or motto, how they wish to be seen by their own customers, and how formal or informal their work environment is. You can gather some of this information from your own observations if you visit their stores, or by reviewing their websites. You can also review the company's annual reports from the secretary of state's office.

Step 5 Understand your target market behavioristically.

  • Determine how important brand or company loyalty is to your target market.
  • Find out if your audience most heavily values convenience, a good price, or quality.
  • Discover how your target market usually pays for your product or service via market surveys.
  • Ask if your customers prefer face-to-face interaction or an online store.
  • For this sort of data, you may conduct your own research or hire a marketing research firm for assistance. [8] X Research source

Formatting Your Target Market Report

Step 1 Begin with a clear title page.

  • For example, a strong title might be something like, “Target Market Analysis for Consumers of Apple Communication Products.”

Step 2 Include a brief introduction.

  • For example, you may begin with, “This target market analysis report is being prepared to consider whether Acme Company should revise its marketing efforts and focus on a younger target audience.”

Step 3 Write your analysis in several short paragraphs.

  • Introduction, identifying your general industry and defining your target market.
  • Description of your target market, including its size and description of the general characteristics.
  • Summary of your market research that went into drafting this analysis.
  • Analysis of trends in the market and any anticipated shifts in your target's buying habits.
  • Risks and competition that you anticipate.
  • Projections and predictions for future growth or shifts in the market.

Step 4 Provide source information in the body of your analysis.

Reviewing and Using your Analysis

Step 1 Make projections, not just summaries.

  • How many customers will come back?
  • How with the aging of your target market affect their interest in your service or product?
  • How would economic changes in the community affect your target market?
  • How would your target market be affected by governmental changes, new regulations, or so on?

Step 2 Prepare your analysis report to share with others.

  • If you are providing the market analysis for someone in higher administration in your company, you probably will be expected to provide recommendations. Based on your analysis, what steps would you recommend that the company take going forward? Should they increase or cut back on advertising in any particular area? Should new target markets be expanded? Bear in mind that your analysis could be an important step in the future of your company.

Step 3 Follow through on your conclusions.

Community Q&A

Community Answer

Video . By using this service, some information may be shared with YouTube.

  • Offer your customers a coupon or special offer if they agree to fill out a survey for you. This allows you to collect information while encouraging customers to come back. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0

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  • ↑ https://www.thebalance.com/how-to-write-a-business-plan-section-3-2947029
  • ↑ Archana Ramamoorthy, MS. Chief Technology Officer, Workday. Expert Interview. 26 February 2019.
  • ↑ http://articles.bplans.com/how-to-write-a-market-analysis/
  • ↑ http://www.inc.com/guides/2010/06/defining-your-target-market.html
  • ↑ http://hightperformance.com/psychographics-drive-join-and-renewal-rates/
  • ↑ http://www.marketing-schools.org/types-of-marketing/behavioral-marketing.html
  • ↑ https://www.thebalance.com/retail-pricing-strategies-2890279

About This Article

Archana Ramamoorthy, MS

To write a target market analysis, begin with a clear title page that contains an informative title. After your title page, include a brief introduction that explains your objective. For example, you might explain that based on your research, marketing efforts should be revised. Then, use short paragraphs to write a description of your target market, a summary of the research you did, an analysis of market trends, and risks and competition that you anticipate. You can conclude with projections of growth or shifts in the market. To learn how to compile data for your target market analysis, read on! Did this summary help you? Yes No

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How to Write the Target Market of your Business Plan

How to Write the Target Market of your Business Plan

The purpose of the target market section of your business plan is to prove that the market is large enough in your area to support the survival and growth of your business.

however, it is noticed that the success of many new ventures is often determined by how well they have prepared this section of the business plan.

The section itself should be broken down into subsections:

Industry analysis,

Market analysis, and, competitor analysis..

Begin by providing a brief description of the market you will be competing in, define your market, how large it is, and how much of the market share you expect to capture.

It is important to reference credible sources and includes the name of your source(s) of information along with a date. Indicate how you will market the products/services and which channels will be used to deliver your products/services to your target market (s) (i.e. website, direct sales force, Value Added Re-sellers, channel partners, etc…).

Be sure to answer the following questions that are usually asked by potential investors:

What are the key drivers, trends, and influences in the market?

To whom do you market your products and services, how will you educate your customers to buy from you, who is your target market, what is your total industry-wide sales volume in dollars in units, what are the trends in sales volumes within your industry, who are the major players and your key competitors what are they like, what does it take to compete what are the barriers to entry, what technological trends affect your industry, what are the main modes of marketing, how does government regulation affect the industry, in what ways are changing consumer tastes affecting your industry, identify recent demographic trends affecting the industry., how sensitive are the industry to seasons and economic cycles, what are key financial measures in your industry (average profit margins, sales commissions, etc.).

Furthermore, the focus of your target market is who are you selling to? Depending on the type of business you are starting and the type of plan you are writing, you may not need to go into too much detail here.

But, no matter what, you must be aware who your customer is and have an estimated value of how many there are. If your customers are few, it may just be a bad signal for you.

Therefore, it is pertinent to do your market research. Every business can benefit from doing market research to make sure it is where it wants to be. Use the business planning process as your opportunity to uncover data and question your marketing efforts.

Be rest assured it will benefit your business in the future and if the time is well spent. first, you will find your market segments and then decide how big each segment is. A market segment is a group of people or businesses that you planned to sell to.

Whatever the facts are, you’ll need to support them with an analysis of the state of your industry and any trends taking place.

You need to support your opinions with market research that identifies specific competitors and outlines their weaknesses and strengths and any barriers to entry into the market.

You need to describe why your industry is valuable and how it will continue to be important. Finally, and perhaps most important, you’ll have to convincingly describe what makes you better and destined to succeed.

When preparing the state of the industry section, instead of looking at your business as a self-contained system.

You’ll describe the industry in which you work and point to your position in that universe. You then zero in on your country, your state, and your local community, deepening on how far your business stretches.

The following are the subsections to consider while writing this section of your business plan.

Table of Contents

1. Industry Research

Describe your industry.  If you are in a new industry, or an industry not well-known to a reader, this will be a fairly comprehensive section.  A better-known industry requires less explanation.

Describe the state of the industry. Is it a new industry, growth industry, competitive industry, or a stable mature industry?

Document industry trends on a local, national or world scale. sales, number of customers, number of units sold, trends in related industries are all good industry indicators., describe the key customers for your specific industry., provide other national/international economic indicators that encourage the health of your industry., examine risks to the industry caused by legislation, technological change or any threat to the industry., 2. target market – customer research.

The Target Market is the groupings of consumers or businesses most likely to buy your products or services.

The erst group you plan to target is your Primary Target Market; the second is your Secondary Target Market.

It is very important that you understand your target markets − after all, these are the customers you need to keep happy!

Answer the following questions regarding your customer and your target markets.

Who is the customer? (Provide both the description and the information in this section.)

Consumer markets:  • age • gender • income • family status. be sure to include how many customers there are in each grouping., business markets: • industry type • size of customer • annual sales. estimate the number of companies using directories or yellow pages., where is the customer, consumer markets: target the geographic radius of your customer base by city, region province or country., business markets: the geography of business to business markets tends to be larger than consumer markets., when do they buy, consumer markets: is there a particularly busy season for your product or service, business markets: if you are selling to seasonal businesses, the timing can be everything. (e.g. wholesaling), what do they buy, consumer markets: • necessity • luxury item • high involvement/big ticket • low involvement/consumable, business markets:  • inventory item (e.g. item that is resold) • capital item • consumable item, why do they buy, consumer markets: how does your product or service help the consumer, business markets: how does your product enhance the performance of the customers’ business, how much do they buy, consumer markets: determine how much is spent on your product by your customers., business markets: estimate the commercial expenditure by the industries in your target area.

Note: If you are using indirect distribution, it may be necessary to describe both your customers as a target market and the end-user as a target market. It is a good idea to state your sources.  This gives the reader more confidence in the information and in the case, you are making for your business.

Competitive Analysis

Provide the results of any customer survey work you have done and the sources of information., list the direct competitors in your local market. these are firms who offer exactly what you offer.  list the current number and the number in existence for the past three-year period., list the indirect competitors in your local market. these are firms who offer substitute products., analyse any competitors who have gone out of business in the past and if possible describe why their business failed., explain how your firm will compete with these competitors to prove how you can survive in their markets., examine risks that could occur when you enter the market. for example, what if your key competitor cuts their price when you open your business, position your product. show how your products/services or company is different from your competition., now over to you.

Do you think this information was any useful or do you have any contribution to make about this topic? Kindly leave your thoughts at the comment box below.

Moreover, don’t forget to share this post with your friends using the social media. Cheers!

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6 Tips for Creating a Great Business Marketing Plan

E very successful company needs a well-thought-out business plan to outline its course of action. A marketing strategy is one key part of that plan: It spells out critical information, including how a business will distinguish itself from competitors and what the team will aim to achieve.

While marketing plans don't always produce immediate results, they are still a crucial aspect of a business plan and should be given a considerate amount of attention. A complete and effective marketing strategy can reveal opportunities through new audience segments, changes in pricing strategy or by differentiating the brand from the competition.

Here's how to create an effective marketing plan for your business. 

How to develop a business marketing plan

A focused marketing plan sets two goals. The first is to maintain engagement and customer loyalty , and the second is to capture market share within a specific audience segment of your target audience.

Your marketing plan outlines the strategies you'll use to achieve both goals and the specific actions your marketing team will employ, such as the specific outreach campaigns, over which channels they will occur, the required marketing budget and data-driven projections of their success.

Marketing is a science-driven commitment that typically requires months of data to refine campaigns, and an interconnected marketing plan keeps your business committed to its long-term goals. 

All marketing guidelines will circle back to the four P's: product, price, place and promotion. The following tips are starting points that will ingrain the habit of continually returning to these four P's.

1. Create an executive summary.

Marketing campaigns should not be considered individual functions. Marketing is the story of your brand as told to customers; like any narrative, its tone and characters should remain consistent. An executive summary details your marketing goals for the next year and helps tie each campaign together. 

When establishing your marketing goals, they should be specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-bound – or SMART. These goals should work together to achieve both internal and external harmony, telling a consistent story that informs customers of your exact message while building on its previous chapters. 

For example, you may set a SMART goal to increase your company's social media traffic by 15% in a 90-day time frame, and plan to achieve this by creating four relevant, informative and high-quality posts per week on each platform, using your company's brand kit. 

2. Identify your target market.

Before you write a marketing plan, you need to find and understand your niche. Ask yourself who the specific demographic is that you're targeting. For example, if your business sells 30-minute meals, then those who work traditional 9-to-5 jobs are likely in your market. Study that group of individuals to understand their struggles and learn how your business can solve the problem.

FYI: Targeting your audience can drastically improve the effectiveness of your marketing efforts and help you avoid wasting resources on fruitless campaigns.

3. Differentiate your brand with inbound marketing.

Inbound marketing utilizes internal tools – such as content marketing, social media activity and search engine optimization (SEO) – to attract a customer's attention primarily through online communication. Content marketing can include informative blog posts, interviews, podcasts with relevant industry figures or supplementary guides on how to best use your product. For example, if you sell cooking supplies, consider posting several fun recipes around the holidays that your tools can help prepare.

Each of these strategies empowers the others in a loop to achieve greater customer attention. A strong content offering can improve your search engine ranking, which brings more people to your website and social pages. You can then share those developed content pieces to that wider audience, who will again improve your search engine rankings. All of this can be done without the expense of a famous endorser or commercial advertising campaign. 

4. Identify competitors that also target your customers.

No matter how original your product or service may be, there is always competition for your target customer's dollar. Small business personnel seldom take the time to study their competitors in-depth or pinpoint companies outside their industry that are just as capable of luring customers away. Knowing who your competitors are, their core competitive advantages, and how they might respond to your offerings – like price cuts or increased communication – helps you devise strategies to combat such losses. 

By seeking out these competitors, you can develop ways to differentiate your business by providing consumers with the things they may be lacking from your competition. Observe how your competitors operate to find ways in which you can stand out and steer your target audience toward your business. 

Did you know? According to SmallBizGenius, 19% of small businesses fail because of their competitors. 

5. State your brand position for your target customers.

Ultimately, your brand – and what it symbolizes for customers – is your strongest advantage. You should be able to write a simple declarative sentence of how you will meet customer needs and beat the competition. The best positioning statements focus on solving a problem for the customer in a way that promotes the best value.

6. Budget the plan. 

When implementing a strategy, consider the marketing budget you will allot. Marketing requires money for various reasons, including paid promotions, marketing software, events and outsourced costs. Consider your budget when creating the plan so that there is money available to spend on marketing tactics to achieve your goals. 

While drafting the plan and evaluating your course of action, note the estimated cost, assets, and time required to achieve the stated goals; this will help when it comes time to set the actual calculated budget. Any goals that you create should be realistically achievable within the budget you have set. 

Key takeaway: When developing your marketing plan, you should know why a customer would use your product, differentiate your brand from competitors, and audit your product offering and message to ensure consistency.

Channels to include in your marketing plan

Once you know the elements of your plan, the next step is to develop the blueprint of how you will reach your target customers. Aside from traditional print and broadcast media, here are three digital marketing channels that many business owners utilize.

Social media

Social media is an essential part of businesses' marketing plans, because every type of customer is on some type of platform – such as Facebook , Twitter or LinkedIn . You may feel overwhelmed at the possibilities, but focus on the sites that can benefit your business the most.

Brett Farmiloe, founder of internet marketing company Markitors, advised companies starting out in social media to get to know their customers and the platforms they use.

"Figure out where your customers are spending their time, and set up shop on those platforms," he told Business News Daily. "Develop a content strategy that can be executed internally, [and then] execute your strategy by posting branded content on your selected platforms."

Though email marketing is not as new as social media marketing, it is an effective and popular choice for small business owners. Companies can implement email marketing techniques in many ways, including newsletters, promotional campaigns and transactional emails. For instance, Mailchimp and Constant Contact help companies manage their email drip campaigns .

Farmiloe added to set your email marketing efforts apart from the others by segmenting your markets.

"Not all subscribers want to receive the same blast," he said. "Smart email marketers take the time to segment subscribers at the outset, and then continue to segment based on subscriber activity. Through segmentation, companies reduce the amount of unsubscribes, increase open rates and, most importantly, increase the amount of actions taken from an email send."

The popularity of smartphones and tablets has changed how companies target consumers. Since people have these devices with them nearly all the time, companies are looking to implement strategies that reach customers on their gadgets.   

"Mobile marketing is interruptive," Farmiloe said. "It's because of this power that a marketer has to let the consumer determine how and when to receive marketing material. That's why almost every app comes with the option to turn notifications on or off. The consumer has to hold the power with mobile marketing."

Key takeaway: Use digital marketing channels – such as social media, email and mobile – to reach customers, but only after researching each channel in depth and developing a strategy to capture consumers' interest. 

Monitoring results

Well-defined budgets, goals and action items – with appropriate personnel assigned to each – can make your marketing plan a reality. Think about how much you're willing to spend, the outcomes you expect and the necessary tasks to achieve those outcomes.

Analytical tools that track customer behavior and engagement rates can serve as a helpful guide for your marketing strategy . Unlike billboards or commercials, digital channels allow you to assess each step of the customer journey and gain insights on the individual patterns and intent of prospects. Intention can soon develop into prediction, empowering your marketing team to develop campaigns that consistently reach target audiences at the right time. 

You can find more tips for measuring your marketing ROI here.

Jordan Beier and Adryan Corcione contributed to the writing and reporting in this article. Source interviews were conducted for a previous version of this article.

Every successful company needs a well-thought-out business plan to outline its course of action. A marketing strategy is

What is Target Marketing?

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Michael Kerr

13 min. read

Updated October 29, 2023

If you build it, they will come.

That’s what I believed when I was first starting out. I assumed that if I opened a business, customers would just show up—no major marketing effort required. Other entrepreneurs take the complete opposite approach and treat marketing as if it’s the 1916 Battle of the Somme: they throw all of their resources in the general direction of their intended audience and hope something hits its mark.

The “if you build it they will come” approach is pretty risky. Just because it worked in Field of Dreams doesn’t mean there’s any reason at all to think that your ideal customers—the ones who both need your product or service and will pay for it—are just going to magically find you and start showing up in droves with their dollars. There’s a greater chance that Kevin Costner will show up at your door in a baseball uniform later today.

“Don’t trust Kevin Costner for marketing advice” is probably a good rule of thumb.

  • What is target marketing?

Target marketing is researching and understanding your prospective customers’ interests, hobbies, and needs so that you can focus your message and your marketing budget on the specific segment of the market that is most likely to purchase your product or service.

Identifying your target market: Who, what, why, how

Identifying your target market is part of business planning—notice that it’s planning as an ongoing action not just writing a plan as a one-time event. Gathering information about your target market, like business planning, shouldn’t be an exercise you do once and then never revisit. For as long as you are in business, you’ll always need to be thinking about how to better understand your ideal prospective customers.

One of your first steps in starting a business (or growing one) is identifying your market— the subset of the population who need and will pay for what you’re selling. Think of it this way: if your business idea is to revolutionize fashionable hiking shoes made from ethically sourced materials, it can be tempting to think that your target market is everyone with feet.

But realistically, the people most likely to purchase your shoes probably share some similar characteristics: they’re fashion-conscious but prioritize comfort over style. They would rather buy something that lasts for 700 miles than 200, even if it costs more.  

You can make some hypotheses, like that because of your price point, college students are less likely to buy them than people in their mid-thirties, or that people who live in areas where hiking and nature are easy to access are more likely to buy than people in dense urban areas.  Part of target marketing is identifying who your ideal customers are, and then testing your assumptions about them to make sure you’re not barking up the wrong tree.

You’ll want to be able to identify who your ideal customer is, where they live (or buy), what motivates them to make choices, and how they behave, or the steps they take in making a purchase.

Who: Demographics

Who needs your product or service? Include basic demographic details such as age, gender, family size, educational level, and occupation.

“Our target customer is male-identifying, age between 28 and 45 with a relatively small family—a partner and 0-1 children. He works a white collar job and makes slightly more than the average median income.”

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Where: Geographics

Where are your customers? These are the places your customers can be found (i.e., their zip code), and be sure to learn details like the size of the area, its population density, and its climate.

“We think that our customers are more likely to live in suburban areas—zip codes with slightly above average median incomes, in areas with a relatively mild climate all year long, like San Diego.

Why: Psychographics

Why do your customers make the choices they make? This is personality and lifestyle information that will help you figure out your customers’ buying patterns. For example, if you know why your customers buy your product, you can figure out how much of your product they need and how often they need to buy it. Also consider what benefits you can provide over your competitors, and how loyal your customers are to you or your competitor (and why).

“We think that our customers probably buy one new pair of hiking shoes each year. They’re relatively loyal when they find a brand that works, but we think our socially conscious mission and the fact that no one else is manufacturing shoes like ours in the US will resonate with them.”

How: Behaviors

How do your customers behave? All customers are buying products to fulfill a need, but how do they regard that need? How do they regard your product? How much information do they have on this need or how your product fulfills it, and what are their information sources?

“Our customers are generally not big impulse buyers. They want information on how products are made before they buy them, and they’re likely to do several online searches before they buy.”

All the examples above represent assumptions—things that you think are true about your ideal customers. But your work isn’t done. Now you need to do the work of figuring out whether your assumptions are correct, and revise them if they’re not. Finding out your wrong at this stage is actually something to get excited about, so don’t let your ego get in the way. You’re better off finding out that you need to shift your ideas (and your resources) toward another demographic than proceed with assumptions are incorrect or untested.

Researching your target market

New technologies can make nailing down your demographics and psychographics much easier (and cheaper) than in the past.

Start with social . If you run social media profiles for your business, most social sites provide a free demographic breakdown of your followers in the backend analytics area.

Leverage email addresses . If you have your customers’ email addresses, services like TowerData can pull detailed demographic information for you.

Use Census information . If you have your customers’ zip codes, there is a ton of free information available to you from the U.S. Census Bureau —it might not drill down to your exact customers’ households, but it’s free and it’s a very good starting point.

If you’re already up and running, leverage your own sales data . Data from your payment processor or inventory history could also be helpful. What are your customers buying, and when? How much is the average purchase in your store? What time of day is the busiest? When do purchases spike, and when do they fall, and can you develop any hypotheses to explain the fluctuations?

Ask your customers . You can also use email, phone, or in-person customer surveys. You don’t necessarily need large numbers of participants to learn more about your customer base—you might be surprised how much you’ll take away from just 5-10 good conversations. If you’re worried about being able to recruit survey participants, offer a free gift or store credit.

At the bare minimum, these are the things you should know about your target customers:

  • What is their gender? Yes, this is the 21st century, but gender identity still makes a difference when it comes to patterns in purchasing decisions for a variety of complex reasons.
  • How old are they? “18 to 49” won’t fly anymore. The majority of millennials and boomers have feet, but what they choose to put on them, and how they make purchases pretty different.
  • What are their interests or hobbies? Finding out what people are into will help you connect with them. Even if they don’t buy from you, you’ve made a new friend. Everyone needs friends.
  • Where do they live? Is geography a limiting factor for your customers (or for you)? Are they able to get to you easily? Is there plenty of parking? Public transportation? Can you deliver? I once purchased a coffee shop tucked in a strip mall between an antique store and a Gold’s Gym. On the upside, most of my 12 or so regular customers were either super fit or could fix an old watch.
  • How do they make a living? Knowing what your primary customers do can help you adjust your hours to fit their needs, or help you devise special offers. People like to feel special.
  • How much money do they make? Whether you’re selling gold-plated sailboats or glow sticks in bulk, it’s a good idea to know how much—or how little—your customers are willing to spend.
  • Do they own their own homes or do they rent? Depending on the answer and what you sell, you may need to tweak your messaging to resonate with your audience.

The key here is to collect information, and then compare it to the assumptions you’ve made about your customers. What’s surprising? What strikes you as an untapped opportunity? Did you hear the same or similar complaints/suggestions from multiple people?

This may also be a good time to create a buyer persona for your business, and/or to conduct a SWOT analysis of your business, so you can develop a fully fleshed-out business strategy.

  • How businesses can use target marketing

Whether you’re still in the process of starting your business , looking for an innovative opportunity to grow your business, or want to protect the business you’ve already built, target marketing is an important tool.

Beat your competition in niche markets

If you’re opening a bookstore or selling sporting goods, you’ve got some big-time competition. Mega-retailers like Amazon and REI aren’t just going to give up a piece of their pie to a scrappy upstart. Lucky for you, we’re living in the days of the niche market! You can use target marketing to carve out your own space in the marketplace.

Case study: The wireless industry

The wireless industry is a great example of small businesses succeeding with niche markets and target marketing. The biggest wireless providers—AT&T, Verizon, Sprint—are focused on the biggest markets, and they have shareholders to answer to every quarter; despite being multi-billion-dollar companies, they don’t have the resources (and it isn’t in their best interest) to staff their support centers with multilingual employees or to offer the most competitive rates on cell phone plans.

So you know what they do instead? They run wholesale divisions that sell small businesses the rights to their wireless networks, and those small businesses then run after the niche markets whose interests and needs are ignored by the big wireless companies.

SIM Shalom targets Israeli-American immigrants by offering Hebrew-language support and cheap calls between the U.S. and Israel.

Kajeet targets parents who want to offer restricted phone lines to their young kids, offering the ability to turn off the phone’s network during certain periods of the day (like school hours, or bedtime) and to block certain phone numbers or websites, as well as the ability to activate GPS notifications so that parents know when their child has arrived at after-school activities.

Consumer Cellular targets senior citizens with simpler plans, a curated selection of phone options, a focus on affordability and reliability, and a partnership with the AARP.

GIV Mobile targets community-minded individuals who are looking for ways to “give back” by offering to donate 8 percent of a user’s monthly bill to a charity of their choice.

Virgin Mobile is after young adults with “back to school” marketing campaigns, pay-as-you-go plans with no credit required, casual website and marketing copy, and a focus on trends.

Identifying and focusing on target markets is what defines each of these businesses. Each one knows that their particular offering isn’t for everyone. They’re not just trying to market to everyone who needs or wants a cell phone. They’ve identified specific audiences with particular needs that aren’t being addressed by the biggest players in the marketplace.

Today, finding out what your competitors are (and aren’t) doing can be as easy as running a Yelp search. Studying your competitors’ customer feedback can help you identify blind spots in their businesses that you can exploit for your own gain.

Build a loyal customer base

Remember, identifying your target market isn’t something you do once and then check off a box. Up and running businesses should create systems to regularly ask your current customers feedback on what they like (and don’t like) about doing business with you.

The great thing about getting to know your customers is that not only will you be able to track down new customers just like them, but your tried-and-true customers will become more loyal—and spend more money

Case study: Sephora

One example that comes to mind is Sephora, a makeup and skincare retailer. My wife shops there for her makeup and skincare almost exclusively—why?

When I asked her, she didn’t say that she shops at Sephora every time she needs makeup and skincare products because they’re the only place that sells particular items (they aren’t), or because they have the best selection (they don’t), or because they offer free shipping (only on orders greater than $50, apparently).

The answer was that she gets “really good” free samples with her order and that she accumulates reward points with every purchase for even bigger and better free samples later. Even better, the selection of free samples is always changing, and she gets to choose the samples she wants from a wide selection of options.

By handing out free samples and—even she admitted—pretty-close-to-worthless reward points, Sephora’s gained an extremely loyal customer.

Would this strategy work for everyone? No way. But it works really, really well on a 30-something woman who wants to feel like her favorite mascara/eye cream/perfume is worth the hefty price tag.

Clearly, Sephora’s tapped into the psychographics of their target customer base. How can you do that for your own customer base? Research the types of loyalty deals your competitors even highly successful businesses outside of your industry are offering. Incorporate the research that you gathered on your target market to figure out what your customers are going to find most valuable.

Your knowledge of their hobbies, living situation, and typical job will help you craft loyalty programs that will resonate. Don’t forget to ask your customers what they think as you test out different programs. That direct feedback is the most valuable research that you can gather and will help you build a loyal customer base.

Getting to know your customers, and giving them what they want, is a surefire way to build a loyal customer base—the kind that gives your business 5-star reviews online, and that tells all their friends about how much they love you. (You know, the kind of customers you want.)

  • In conclusion

The only thing I learned from my do-nothing plan was to never take marketing advice from a disembodied voice in a Kevin Costner film. Had I done any research at all, I would have known that’s not even the real quote.* Doing nothing won’t help your business, and it will almost certainly hurt it in the long run. The everything-but-the-kitchen-sink marketing plan where you throw resources into marketing to everyone with a pulse usually ends in similar disappointment: a lot of zeros on the bank statement, and all in the wrong places.

Target marketing is going to require some upfront work, but the rewards are huge and well worth the effort.

*The correct quote is, “If you build it, he will come.” Which is, in fact, more representative of the number of customers I attracted with my old marketing plan. 

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Content Author: Michael Kerr

Michael Kerr began his professional life as an entrepreneur. He built and managed a number of successful businesses before returning to school to indulge his passion for writing. An award-winning writer, Michael's work has appeared thousands of times in dozens of publications, including Portland Business Journal, USA Today and the Houston Chronicle. He lives in Portland, Oregon.

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Could Target launch a membership program? Here's who they would be competing against

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Target is considering offering a paid membership program that could launch this year, according to Bloomberg.

Internally labeled "Project Trident," details on the program were scarce but Bloomberg reported that it would include benefits beyond Target's current free membership program (Circle) and could incorporate the company's delivery service (Shipt) .

USA TODAY reached out to Target for comment and did not receive a response.

If the company goes through with the project, it would be a late entry into the paid retail membership market, as Walmart and Amazon have offered benefits to members through their Walmart+ and Amazon Prime programs. The company would also be competing against membership warehouses Costco and Sam's Club — a Walmart subsidiary.

Target said that comparable sales declined 4.9% in the third quarter of 2023 though operating income increased 28.9% due to a "higher gross margin rate" in its third quarter earnings report .

Here are some of the players Target will compete against if it launches a membership program. 

Purchases you make through our links may earn us and our publishing partners a commission.  

Retail membership details

  • Plan: Gold Star
  • Price: $60 per year
  • Warehouse access
  • Costco Fuel access
  • Free household card
  • Access to Costco services
  • Plan: Executive
  • Price: $120 per year
  • All benefits of Gold Star
  • Annual 2% reward on qualified purchases

Costco generated $4.6 billion in membership fees from nearly 128 million members,  according to the company's 2023 Annual Report .

  • Plan: Walmart+
  • Price: $12.95 per month or $98 per year
  • Free delivery from store ($35 minimum)
  • Free shipping
  • Fuel discounts
  • Free flat tire repair
  • Free road hazard warranty
  • Returns from home

Walmart reported that it made $5 billion in operating income from US stores and that the company had "increased Walmart+ membership income" in its third quarter earnings report . USA TODAY reached out to Walmart regarding Walmart+ revenues and did not receive a response back.

  • Price: $50 per year
  • Free flat tire repair, battery testing & wiper blade installation
  • Same day delivery ($12 fee)
  • Price: $110 per year
  • All benefits included in Club
  • Early shopping hours
  • Free curbside pickup
  • Pharmacy discounts
  • Optical discounts
  • Same day delivery ($8 fee)

While the company did not disclose the amount of revenue that the Plus tier generates, Walmart's third quarter earnings report pointed to the upper tier as a part of the company's 7.1% growth in membership revenue from Sam's Club.

  • Plan: Prime
  • Price: $14.99 per year or $139 per year
  • Free One-Day and Same-Day Delivery
  • Prime Video, Reading, Gaming and Amazon Music access
  • Free one-year GrubHub subscription
  • Merchandise discounts

Amazon included Amazon Prime revenue in the $10.5 billion subscription service category in the company's fourth quarter 2023 earnings report .

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Nvidia holdings disclosure pumps up shares of small AI companies

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  • A filing by Nvidia shows the chipmaker has stakes in a handful of public companies.
  • Shares of most of those companies soared even though Nvidia's involvement was already known.
  • While Nvidia has long been involved with venture investing, its more recent deals are likely to be much more significant given the boom in artificial intelligence.

In this article

Investors have become so enamored with Nvidia's artificial intelligence story that they want a piece of anything the chipmaker touches.

On Wednesday, Nvidia disclosed in a regulatory filing that it has stakes in a handful of public companies: Arm , SoundHound AI , Recursion Pharmaceuticals , Nano-X Imaging , and TuSimple .

With the exception of Arm, which topped $130 billion in market cap recently, shares of the Nvidia-backed companies soared Thursday following the 13F filing, a form that must be submitted by institutional investment managers overseeing at least $100 million in assets.

But none of these investments would be surprising to anyone who took the time to sift through old news reports and filings. The AI mania is firmly in an irrational exuberance phase, and investors are pouncing on anything and everything in the space.

Nvidia's earnings numbers will continue to go up, says Bernstein's Stacy Rasgon

No stock is hotter than Nvidia, which passed Amazon in market value Tuesday and then Alphabet on Wednesday to become the third-most-valuable company in the U.S., behind only Apple and Microsoft . Nvidia shares are up more than 200% over the past 12 months due to seemingly limitless demand for its AI chips, which underpin powerful AI models from Google, Amazon, OpenAI and others.

SoundHound, which uses AI to process speech and voice recognition, jumped 67% on Thursday, after Nvidia disclosed a stake that amounted to $3.7 million at the time of the filing. Nvidia invested in SoundHound in 2017 as part of a $75 million venture round.

SoundHound went public through a special purpose acquisition company in 2022, and Nvidia was named in its presentation as a strategic investor.

Nano-X uses AI in medical imaging. Nvidia's disclosure of a $380,000 investment in the company sent the stock up 49% on Thursday. Nvidia's involvement dates back years to a venture investment in Zebra Medical , an Israeli medical imaging startup. Nano-X acquired Zebra in 2021.

TuSimple, an autonomous trucking company, rocketed 37% on Thursday after the disclosure of Nvidia's $3 million stake. The share rally comes a month after the company announced plans to delist from the Nasdaq due to a "significant shift in capital markets" since its 2021 IPO. TuSimple debuted at $40 a share and now trades for roughly 50 cents.

"Accordingly, the Special Committee determined that the benefits of remaining a publicly traded company no longer justify the costs," TuSimple said in a release Jan. 17. "The Company is undergoing a transformation that the Company believes it can better navigate as a private company than as a publicly traded one."

Nvidia invested in TuSimple in 2017, four years before the IPO.

Nvidia acquired its stake in biotech company Recursion more recently. Like TuSimple, Recursion went public in 2021 , but Nvidia bought in two years later through what's called a private investment in public equity, or PIPE. Nvidia bought $50 million worth of shares in 2023 and now has an investment worth $76 million, according to its filing.

Recursion shares spiked 14% on Thursday.

Nvidia's own financials will be on full display next week, when the company reports quarterly earnings. Analysts are expecting year-over-year revenue growth above 200% to more than $20 billion.

The company's more recent investments are likely to be much more significant than its earlier bets, disclosed late Wednesday, because they're at the heart of the AI boom. In recent years, Nvidia has backed hot AI startups including Cohere , Hugging Face , CoreWeave and Perplexity.

"AI is transforming the way consumers access information," said Jonathan Cohen, Nvidia's vice president of applied research, in Perplexity's announcement of a $73.6 million funding round in January. "Perplexity's world-class team is building a trusted AI-powered search platform that will help push this transformation forward."

WATCH: Perplexity AI aims to rival Google

Perplexity AI aims to rival Google

Don't miss these stories from CNBC PRO:

  • Three stocks that could replace Tesla in the 'Magnificent 7'
  • Morgan Stanley hikes Nvidia price target ahead of earnings: 'AI demand continues to surge'
  • Vanguard launches two new ETFs to hit this sweet spot of tax-free fixed income
  • Berkshire Hathaway topped $600,000 a share last week, aiming at $1 trillion market value

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    Use these general terms as linchpins in research data for the market analysis section of your business plan, and to identify your target market:

  2. Target Market Examples

    Business planning How to write Market analysis Target Market Examples Elon Glucklich 7 min. read Updated October 27, 2023 Download Now: Free Business Plan Template Imagine your dream is to own a diner. You have restaurant experience and a great location in mind - you just need the bank to approve your loan to get started.

  3. Target Market: Definition, Purpose, Examples, Market Segments

    Key Takeaways A target market is a group of customers with shared demographics who have been identified as the most likely buyers of a company's product or service. Identifying the target...

  4. How to Write a Market Analysis for a Business Plan

    Objective Industry outlook Target market Market value Competition Barriers to entry Regulation Let's dive into an in-depth look into each section: Step 1: Define your objective Before you...

  5. 6 Key Target Market Examples (+How to Find & Reach Yours)

    A target market is a group of people who are most likely to buy from your business and who your products or services are meant for. "Defining and understanding your target market is a critical foundational step for your marketing strategy," commented Mitchell Leiman, LocaliQ's SVP of Strategy & Operations.

  6. Target Market: Examples, What it is & How to Define it

    Target markets are usually defined by three aspects: Demographics: Things like the age, gender, income, marital status, ethnicity, employment status, etc., of your buyers. Geographics: Where your customers are located (this can be as wide as entire continents, or even just a single neighborhood or street).

  7. What Is a Target Market? And How to Define Yours

    A target market is a specific group of people with shared characteristics that a business markets its products or services to. Companies use target markets to thoroughly understand their potential customers and craft marketing strategies that help them meet their business and marketing objectives.

  8. What is a target market and how to define yours

    One of the first steps in starting a business is determining your target market. This step alone can be the basis for what products you create, how you brand your business and ultimately who you market to. With that in mind, you'll need to develop assets that resonate with your target market. Start by creating a business website that represents your business and uses language and visuals ...

  9. Target Market in a Business Plan

    Target Market Presentation in the Business Plan The business plan target market section can be presented in a number of formats, but a listing of the major customer segments together with a pie chart will show the investor where the main potential for the product lies.

  10. How to Define Your Target Market in 5 Steps

    1. Don't try to please everybody Strategy is focus. Say you're planning to start a restaurant; which of these three options is easier? Pleasing customers 40 to 75 years old, wealthy, much more concerned with healthy eating than cheap eating, appreciating seafood and poultry, liking a quiet atmosphere.

  11. What Is a Target Market (And How to Find Yours)

    A target market is the specific group of people you want to reach with your marketing message. They are the people who are most likely to buy your products or services, and they are united by some common characteristics, like demographics and behaviors. The more clearly you define your target market, the better you can understand how and where ...

  12. How to do a market analysis for your business plan

    Target market analysis: Identifies and quantifies the customers that you will be targeting for sales Competitive analysis: Identifies your competitors and analyzes their strengths and weaknesses The exact way in which you choose to organize this information is up to you.

  13. Target Market: Examples and How To Define It

    Updated September 29, 2023 Understanding your target market is essential for creating an effective marketing plan. Consumers have many qualities that influence their purchasing decisions. By organizing these qualities into a target market, you can select the best strategy to appeal to your ideal customer.

  14. Target Market: Definition, Purpose, Examples, Types, & Segments

    A business will promote its product or service to the target market from which the organization may generate the greatest profitable action, thus achieving the goal of marketing.. While B2C businesses may focus most on audience-specific characteristics to define their target markets, B2B businesses typically consider industries, niches, and verticals as the primary characteristics to describe ...

  15. How To Create a Target Market Strategy

    A target market strategy is a business plan focused on growing sales and brand awareness within a specific group of consumers. To do this, businesses strategize based on demographics that make up a market, which is an area or group specified for product sales. Target markets represent the opportunity for new business and increased sales.

  16. How to Write and Conduct a Market Analysis

    A market is the total sum of prospective buyers, individuals, or organizations that are willing and able to purchase a business's potential offering. A market analysis is a detailed assessment of the market you intend to enter. It provides insight into the size and value of the market, potential customer segments, and their buying patterns.

  17. What Is a Target Market and Why Is It So Important?

    Accept. In the fast-paced and competitive business landscape of today, understanding your target market is crucial for any business to thrive and succeed. Whether you are a startup, a growing business, or an established company, defining and analyzing your target market is a fundamental aspect of developing a successful business plan and ...

  18. How to define your target market

    Defining your target market will help you choose who you want to serve, know who your best customers are and organize your efforts to win more of them. "You pay your sales team to knock on doors," says BDC Senior Business Advisor Mallika Kazim, "so you want to make sure they're the right doors.". Kazim recommends these three steps to ...

  19. How to Write a Target Market Analysis: 13 Steps (with Pictures)

    2. Prepare your analysis report to share with others. Your target market analysis may stand on its own, or you may be including it as part of a larger business plan for your company. [12] Review your company's prior reports or business plans, so you will understand the format that is expected.

  20. Target Market Analysis: What It Is and How To Make One

    Create the document. 1. Conduct market research. Research your industry and ideal market. For industry, consider factors like overall outlook, trends and areas of potential. Research your competitors and create charts, graphs and reports to add to your overall target market analysis summarizing the data you found. 2.

  21. How to Write the Target Market of your Business Plan

    Indicate how you will market the products/services and which channels will be used to deliver your products/services to your target market (s) (i.e. website, direct sales force, Value Added Re-sellers, channel partners, etc…). Be sure to answer the following questions that are usually asked by potential investors:

  22. Our Corporate Strategy

    Purpose & History Our Corporate Strategy Our durable business model is designed to stand the test of time and differentiate us in the marketplace. Over the years, we've built a foundation that serves our guests, team members, vendors, communities and shareholders well — and delivers strong results — no matter how the environment around us evolves.

  23. What Is a Marketing Plan? And How to Create One

    Marketing plan vs marketing strategy vs business plan. In researching a marketing plan, you may come across the related concepts of marketing strategy and business plan. Think of all three as written roadmaps for developing your business. You'll find similarities among them, including your business objectives and information on your target market.

  24. 6 Tips for Creating a Great Business Marketing Plan

    Marketing is a science-driven commitment that typically requires months of data to refine campaigns, and an interconnected marketing plan keeps your business committed to its long-term goals.

  25. What is Target Marketing?

    Identifying your target market is part of business planning—notice that it's planning as an ongoing action not just writing a plan as a one-time event. Gathering information about your target market, like business planning, shouldn't be an exercise you do once and then never revisit.

  26. How to Start an Ecommerce Business: A Simple 7-Step Guide

    5. Write a Business Plan. Your ecommerce business plan should outline your company's goals, the strategies to achieve these goals, plus your target market, financial projections, and operational structure. This document should act as a reference point and a roadmap for your business. And answer some important business-focused questions.

  27. Report: Target considers launching a paid membership program

    Target said that comparable sales declined 4.9% in the third quarter of 2023 though operating income increased 28.9% due to a "higher gross margin rate" in its third quarter earnings report.. Here ...

  28. Nvidia holdings disclosure pumps up shares of small AI companies

    Nano-X uses AI in medical imaging. Nvidia's disclosure of a $380,000 investment in the company sent the stock up 49% on Thursday. Nvidia's involvement dates back years to a venture investment in ...

  29. Target relaunches Up&Up store brand

    Target Corp. said Monday it's relaunching its 15-year-old Up&Up store brand, one of its most successful private labels, and adding hundreds more items to the product line.

  30. Assessing intriguing QB market as 2024 NFL offseason nears ...

    At one point this past season, Sam Howell looked primed to be a franchise QB, boasting the stats to show it. But with a new head coach (Dan Quinn) and general manager (Adam Peters), along with the ...