The Only Target Market Analysis Template You’ll Ever Need

Use our target market analysis template to define your target market.

Marketing is a constant battle between you and your competition.

Lots of small business owners lose the marketing war because of this simple reason:

They are fighting on many fronts.

Part of the reason Hitler lost in the Second World War was that he fought on many fronts at the same time.

Many small business owners fail because they try selling their products or services to too many different kinds of customers.

Not having a clear understanding of who you want to be your customer to be can kill your business.

Recently, I asked a business owner who his ideal client was.

He told me he doesn’t want to turn anyone away so; he is willing to work with everyone.

The problem is, despite having a number of different customers, the business is still struggling to be profitable

Trying to market to every kind of customer at the same time requires a lot of money, time and staff.

If you don’t define who your ideal client is, you’ll be spreading yourself too thin.

If you sell to everyone, be prepared to get anyone

The more your business grows, the more important it is to define the type of customers you want. You shouldn’t be taking every customer that comes your way.

Think about what you do during the hiring process. You are very clear about who you want to hire. You filter out candidates who are not the right fit for your business.

You should apply the same diligence when taking in new clients.

What else do you do during the hiring process?

You ask questions.

Asking the right questions can unveil the right candidates.

The same logic applies when taking on clients.

The questions we ask tell us about our clients and their needs.

When we get the right, satisfactory answers to these questions, they help us give our clients the results they want.

Over the years, we’ve systemised and developed the right questions to filter our clients. Here at Grow, we call it the target market analysis template.

There are questions in our template that we call deal breakers. And there are also questions we call deal makers.

How to use Grow’s target market analysis template

I strongly recommend you download the template in a Microsoft Word document so that you can use it time and time again.

After using this template, you’ll be left with a better idea of your target market. Then you’ll know where to spend your precious marketing budget in order to reach these clients.

Business owners, who have used our target market analysis template, often come back and tell us the incredible results they’ve had from it.
Using the template has allowed them to focus their time and marketing resources on specific customer groups that matter to their business.
They tell us how our template makes them more productive.

They quickly realise that they can focus and market to the best customers who generate more profits and fewer worries for their business.

Questions in our target market analysis template

Okay, let’s start with the first question you should ask yourself.

1. Who is your ideal customer?

This is the first, important question.

You should pick a particular customer group you will be answering questions about. Keep this group in mind as you answer the questions that follow.

2. What problems are they trying to solve?

It is crucial that you have a thorough understanding of the problems, pains, and frustrations that your ideal customers are seeking to solve.

The more you know about these problems and pains, the better.

When you know the problems they are trying to solve, you can talk about these frustrations in your marketing materials.

In our case, we are aware that small business owners are confused and overwhelmed by digital marketing. We speak of that in our marketing materials.

3. What is the depth of their pain and frustration?

If a customer has lots of pain and frustration around a particular issue, it will be a lot easier to convince them to buy your product. They need it. And they need it fast.

It is important that you are marketing to people who are really in need of your product.

And more importantly, these people should be willing to pay for your product or service.

4. How do these people currently solve their problems?

It’s important to understand how prospects currently solve their frustration or problem, and what product or service they currently use.

How’s your product better than the current solutions out there?

You need to emphasise this key difference as you start marketing your product and service to your ideal customers.

5. What value and benefits do you offer these customers?

Customers think in terms of the value they will get after buying your product.

Your marketing materials should communicate all the incredible benefits that the client will get from your product or service.

6. How easy is it to reach these customers?

As you know, some customers are much easier to reach than others.

If a market segment is easy to reach, improves profitability and increases repeat purchases, then I’d say that these are your ideal customers.

7. What is the length of the sales cycle?

If your chosen ideal customer requires a long time to make decisions, it is better you create another group of clients who have a much shorter sales cycle.
Understanding the length of your sales cycle can have a profound impact on the type of marketing strategy you choose to use.

8. How and where do these people get information to inform their purchasing decisions?

Where do your target customers hang out online?

Who influences their purchasing decisions?

Knowing the answers to these questions will help you focus your marketing resources and efforts where they matter.

For example, if you’re a fashion brand, your target customers may spend most of their time on Instagram and Facebook.

You may want to contact particular influencers on these two big platforms and ask them to recommend your products to their followers.

Maybe your target customers read industry blogs to catch up with the latest information. In which case, you should guest publish on authoritative blogs in your niche.

9. What marketing methods are best at reaching this target segment?

It’s very easy to get overwhelmed by the number of marketing strategies at your disposal today.

But all marketing methods are not equal. Some are a better fit for your business than others. Some marketing strategies will provide better ROI than others.

Pick one or two marketing strategies to start with.

Then continue to test them against each other until you find the perfect one for your business.

10. What is your ideal customers’ repeat purchasing potential?

We have all heard that there is more money to be made from repeat custom.

It’s always cheaper to market to current customers than it is to market to new customers.

If your chosen customers are likely to come back and buy more from you, then they are the perfect ideal customers you need.

11. What is the cost of obtaining this lead?

It’s worth considering this in terms of staff, time and money and marketing resources.

A lead is not even a customer yet. A lead is someone who has expressed interest in your business and is ready to buy your product or service.

If it’s $2 more expensive to acquire a lead on Google than on Facebook, then you may want to stick with Facebook marketing.

Why?

Because it’s cheaper. You don’t want to get off on the back foot any more than you need to when acquiring leads.

You can download our template to determine your ideal customers and start marketing to them today.

Grow’s Target Market Analysis Template

 

Target Market Analysis Template
1.	Profitability: What is their budget? What is their repeat purchasing potential?
2.	What marketing channels are best for reaching this segment?
3.	How and where do these people get information to inform their purchasing decisions?
4.	Length of sales cycle
5.	How easy is it to reach these customers?
6.	What key benefits do you offer these customers?
7.	How do they currently solve their problems? What products or services do they use at the moment?
8.	What is the depth of their pain and frustration?
9.	What problems do they have to solve?
10.	Target customer group / target segment / ideal customer