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BUSM 3030 Introduction to Entrepreneurship (Fiske): Target Market

What is Your Market?

Your market is the customers for your product or service. Before you can research you will need to determine who are the customers for your business idea. Here are a few questions to get you started:

Who do you think will buy your product?

If you have an idea, you have already thought of at least one customer, but think about those groups more broadly and narrowly. For example, if you have identified dog owners as your target market a broader group would be pet owners and a narrower group would be owners of a particular breed.

Who do your competitors sell to?

Search for articles about your competitors in a database or in a market research report to see who they identify as their target markets.

Who are related customer/market groups?

Once you have identified a particular group, think about who might be related targets. For example, if you have identified millennials as one of your target markets, how about Gen Y or Gen X as additional markets?

 

It is always best to brainstorm many possible target markets before you start searching for data. This will help you avoid needing to start your searches again. 

Researching Your Target Market

Once you have identified your target markets, you can use secondary research to determine the size of the segment and whether it's growing, shrinking or stable. Market Research Reports do a good job of outlining the macro trends of these target markets.

If you target market is consumers (people), these are great sources:

If your target market is businesses (or industries) these are great sources:

Habits of Your Customers

U.S. Demographic Data

Ask A Business Librarian

In Their Own Words

What do your target customers think? How are they currently meeting their needs?

Read reviews on Amazon or Yelp or see what they are tweeting and facebooking about the competition.

Reaching the Consumer

Off Campus Access

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