4. Know Your Target Consumer

     Do you know someone who likes to fish? If you do, you probably know that he doesn’t just cast a line into the water and hope that he catches some kind of fish without any idea of what kind he might catch.

     He always has an idea of what kind of fish he hopes to catch. He always chooses his fishing spot, his bait, lures, and other fishing equipment with a definite plan for catching that kind of fish.

     Your business is no different from this. At every stage from planning your business to planning your marketing strategy to planning your advertising campaign, you should follow the same rule. At every stage, design everything about your business with the idea of a certain kind of person using your product or service.

     Suppose, for example, you wanted to market shoes. For whom will your shoes be designed? For what purpose would your target consumer need or want them? Would he want them for dancing, work, a profession, sports, cheerleading, comfort, support, or for some other purpose?

     That narrows it down a bit, but it doesn’t narrow it down enough. We still haven’t clearly identified your target consumer.

     You already know that you don’t market “just a shoe;” that you have to market a certain kind of shoe. But it’s also true that you don’t just market a certain kind of shoe. You must market with a certain kind of customer in mind.

     That holds true for every step in the value chain: design, manufacture, advertising, and marketing.

     We’ll talk in depth about brand image, brand personality, and branding strategies in future lessons. For this lesson, let’s discuss target consumers and product and marketing design.

     Let’s suppose the shoes you plan to market are dancing shoes. At this point, you can forget about marketing sports supplies. You could, however, consider marketing clothing that could be worn with the dancing shoes.

     But what kind of dancers did you have in mind? Rock ‘n’ roll? Belly dancers? Ballet? Hawaiian? Retired persons? Ballroom dancers? It’s not a case of “One size fits all.” You have to narrow it down still further.

Question: 

     Why can’t you market two or more lines of clothing—for example, to both teenagers and the elderly?

Answer: 

     Most teenagers would think that a product is “uncool” if it were commonly worn by “old people,” and most older people would feel silly wearing a product that is popular among teenagers. Neither group would be pleased. If you want to market to two different target groups, you should create two separate brand names—one for each line of clothing.

     Your customers want to feel that your product was designed especially with them in mind.

     Let’s say your target consumers are teenagers and college students with active social networks. These consumers are interested in keeping up with fashions, but they’re probably not trend setters. In addition to wanting style, they also want comfort and practicality.

     Well, that’s still not specific enough for marketing, but there’s already something wrong with this business model. What is wrong with it? Your target consumers have already been targeted by someone else, and the barriers to your entry into the market have already been erected.

     Nike already has the loyalty of status seekers. Adidas already has the reputation for top quality. Levi Strauss already has the attention of those who want custom-fit clothes. 

     What is your core competency?

Brand Personality and Core Competency

1. Brand personality: In their advertising and public relations campaigns, companies “set their brands apart” from other brands by creating images for them. In some ways, those images are like personalities. We’ll discuss this further in Lesson 10.

2. Core Competency: That’s usually a quality or skill that your company can do better than other companies. You can use that skill to erect barriers to entry so that other companies can’t compete with you. We’ll discuss this further in Lesson 7.

Group Discussion:

How will you and your team organize your business model?

Who will your target consumers be?

How will you target them?

     By now, you and your team have decided on the marketing project that will occupy your attention for the rest of the year.

     Today’s homework assignment is to design your business model and decide on your target consumer. For the rest of the year, most of the business decisions you will make will be influenced by your choice of products and its target consumer.