Target Market Business Plan

New entrepreneurs sometimes resist defining a target customer base, thinking it might limit the business or reduce the number of potential customers. Identifying target customers does not prevent your business from accepting customers that don't fit the target profile.If such a customer seeks your product or service, you will still be available.

A newer twist is cohort marketing, which studies groups of people who underwent the same experiences during their formative years.

This leads them to form a bond and behave differently from people in different cohorts, even when they're similar in age.

Fifty-year-old baby boomers prefer rock 'n' roll to Geritol; 30-year-olds may still be living with their parents. You can have two men who are 64 years old, and one is retired and driving around in a Winnebago, and the other is just remarried with a toddler in his house.

Generational marketing, which defines consumers not just by age, but also by social, economic, demographic and psychological factors, has been used since the early 80s to give a more accurate picture of the target consumer.

There's no end to the number of different ways you can slice the pie.

Further complicating matters, age no longer means what it used to.

Defining a target market will increase cost efficiency.

Defining a target customer base increases your cost efficiency.

These characteristics are sometimes called a demographic profile.

Common characteristics used to classify customers include: Create a customer profile.