The world of business can be really overwhelming for a newbie. If you have just started a new business and you are wondering how to get your first customers, this article is for you. In it, I try to break down everything you need to know to start getting new customers.

Getting Started

For a new business, the best place to start on your road to getting customers is to define who your target market is.

What does ‘target market’ mean?

Your target market is a specific group of potential customers to whom you can sell your product or service. The target market is a segment of the total market for whom a product or service is best suited for. Consumers within a target market share similar characteristics like demography, buying power or income. Target markets influence decision making in marketing strategies such as where to spend money on ads or how to appeal to customers.

This is why the first step to getting customers is determining who your target market is.

How do you determine your target market?
The target market is used to define the buyer persona of a business. This persona is a representative overview of your business’s ideal customer.

Determining your target market can be a tricky affair. A popular misconception is that the target market is the same as a demographic. Demographics help you describe your target market but they only tell a small part of the story.

Here is a step by step guide to determining your target market.

Step 1: Identify the value of your product
The first step in defining your target market is identifying what value your product/service will be offering them. A product’s value is attached to the feature/benefit that the product comes with and is directly contained within the problem it solves.

Here’s an example

If your sell braided wigs, the benefit to the consumer is a stressless alternative to spending hours at a beauty salon.

Here’s an exercise to help you with this step. Using the table below, identify the features of your product/service and write down what benefit each feature provides your customer. This exercise helps you understand what your potential customer has to gain from your product and why they would choose to buy it. By the end of this exercise, patterns will begin to show reflecting common characteristics of your target market.


Step 2: Segment Market
This exercise involves drawing a specific group of people out of the general market that your benefit (from the last section) can potentially serve. The aim is to zoom into as specific a group as possible to dedicate your marketing effort towards. Here’s a case study courtesy of Greenbook.org illustrating how market segmentation assists businesses in maximising their reach.

An auto insurance company performed a market analysis to segment their market into these 5 segments: Non-traditionalists, direct buyers, budget-conscious, agent loyal and hassle-free. This exercise provided the company with insight into the best marketing message for its audience.

Here are four characteristics for segmenting large markets.

Geography

Markets can be broken down into the specific geographic location your potential customer is. This could be on a country level or even as small as a specific city in a state. For your small business, we recommend you target your local city.

Demography

Demography refers to characteristics used to describe a specific population. Demographic descriptions include:

Age - What age group is your target market?

Gender: What gender are they?

Profession: What do they do for a living?

Income: What is their income range?

Education: What is their education level?

Marital Status: Are they married?

Family size: How big is their family?

Psychography

This refers to non-physical (often social) motivations that influence your customer’s purchasing decision. People often choose products based on their beliefs and emotions. An example of this:

Luxury items appeal to consumers based on their interest in status symbols.

Here are some psychographic variables to guide you in identifying your target market’s characteristics:

Personality

Lifestyle

Attitudes

Social status

Activities, interests and opinions

Behaviour
For this exercise, we take into account the reason behind your consumers choice for purchasing your product/service. Answer the following questions about your market

Why are they buying from you?

How often will they buy this product (weekly, monthly, yearly)?

How long does it take them to decide to purchase?

Where do they currently make purchases from?

Target markets are usually a combination of the different segments gotten from the above criteria. Demography and geography qualify your target market so you can establish segment members that can afford your product and have access to your product. The second two segmentation criteria will guide you in constructing promotional messaging that will appeal to that target market.

Step 3: Research your market
The final step is researching your market. This ranges from what their habits are to what social media platforms they are most likely to be on. What competing products do they currently use?

Research involves developing and distributing surveys and questionnaires or having focus groups consisting of people that fit into your target market. Good research is extremely detailed and involves as large a sample size as possible. By the end of your research, you will have completed the final step in understanding your target audience.

At this point, you should be able to answer these questions:

Who is my target market?

What do they do?

How can I reach them?

The next part of the article explains reaching out to your target market and converting them into your consumers. This section consists of actionable steps you can take to make your potential customer your active customer.

For the full version of this article, please head over to https://blog.oneroute.io/p/how-to-get-your-first-100-customers/

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