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Whether you’re launching a simple website
or a large e-commerce website, identifying a website’s
target market from the start is an important step
in business planning. Successful websites put
their effort into reaching a very specific target
market, sometimes without even realizing it. A
webmaster can increase their chances of success
by identifying their website’s target market
before jumping into any marketing tactics or online
advertising to increase traffic and monetize their
websites.
What is a Target Market?
A target market is the main audience or group
of visitors (or buyers) that a webmaster or online
business owner wants to visit their website. A
target market can, and should, be identified and
described in detail before launching a website.
This is to help tailor the site’s Internet
marketing plan and marketing tactics around that
target group to maximize the return on investment
(ROI), which basically means getting the most
for your time and money.
A target market is described by its demographic
and or psychographic profile. Demographics and
psychographics include many personal and social
details, such as:
1. Age groups
2. Genders
3. Nationalities or ethnicities
4. Income levels
5. Marital status
6. Education levels
7. Location
8. Whether or not they have children
9. Social or professional groupings (job, industry,
social class, etc.)
10. Interests (could be a hobby, musical preference,
favorite sport, etc.)
When choosing or identifying a website’s
target market, there are a few things to keep
in mind:
1. The size of the target market.
2. Whether the target market is growing or shrinking.
3. Whether or not there’s a demand for the
website or online business in the particular target
market.
4. Whether or not is would be easy to monetize
the target market. (For example, you wouldn’t
sell high-end electronics to a low-income target
market, and you wouldn’t run a content site
exclusively on ad revenues if your target market
is traditionally “ad blind.”)
5. Things that influence members of the target
market. (For example, would they be more responsive
to paid advertising on other websites, or would
they be influenced more by a referral from a friend,
whereas a focus on viral marketing would be best?)
After identifying a website’s target market,
specific marketing tactics can be modeled around
their influences and behaviors, saving time and
money when marketing a website or online business.
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