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Which are your target groups?

© Robert Mizerek - Fotolia.com

This question you should always ask yourself when running a business. In the world of e-businesses it is not enough just to say internet users.

Usually you should start to think about to whom your website or e-business is addressing to. Consider if you want to reach retail clients or if you want to win b2b business. Maybe you want to reach both target groups.

Each of them will need different approaches. And each of them then has to be segmented.

Target group segmentation

Retail clients

If you track retail clients for instance for an e-shop start with the following points  

• Gender
• Age
• Income

Why these three? Generally women and men have other purchasing habits and also react different to advertising, layout, design etc. than men. Therefore generally both genders require different types of marketing.  Determine if you target groups gender is mainly female, male or equal mixed.

Also determine then the average age of your target group and try to segment the age in order to know how old the majority of persons are whom you want to reach as well to know how old the rest is. Depending on the age different marketing approaches are necessary.

The income is probably the best filter to identify smaller circles than just with gender and age. In many societies the income also has influence on the education and therefore marketing becomes more expensive the higher the income of the target group is. It is simply more difficult to reach billionaires than millionaires, because there are not many.

For many businesses this is not enough. Depending on the business also origin, culture, education, profession, habits and several product or service related criteria can serve to further diversify who shall be reached.

Such segmentation enables to do further research in order to examine where and how to reach them.

B2B clients

For B2B clients think of the following points

• Business Sector
• Business Size
• Position of the target person

Although for B2B the criteria for retail clients could be used for detailed investigation, in the beginning it is more suitable just to focus on the most important criteria.

Many e-businesses offer products and services just for a special sector or industry. Therefore it is wise to examine first which sectors contain potential clients. Doing so will work as a strong filter. Each business sector has owns forums, online magazines and websites and so it becomes more easy to use only business related sites for marketing.

The business size so far is important to know how huge the target group is. Furthermore depending on the size each company has different expectations and will require different approaches.

In order to be able to approach them you have to know to which person inside a company you will have to communicate in order to offer or sell your product.

In some companies you will have to approach directly the business owner, while in others a manager or only a secretary.

For B2B clients in addition every company has to define business related criteria to create a very precise profile.  Such will allow then to examine for instance where to meet them at fairs or which magazines the target persons reads or which other media is relevant to reach them.

Marketing is not witchcraft but is based on scientific methods. Know which your target groups are and find out where and how to communicate with them in the internet to be successful.