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1. Getting Started


Target Markets

It seems like a foolishly simple question, but who do
you see being the receivers of your products or
services? You may have several classes or groups
of likely buyers picked out. That's OK, just keep in
mind that the same strategy, image, etc. may not
work for all of them. You may also need separate
marketing programs, perhaps even separate
companies, to serve each target group.


Here's where it's easy to go wrong. Children, for
example, aren't a target market. Using children as a
group isn't defining the target group well enough to
effectively market to. There are rich children, poor
children, city children, country children, black
children, white children and lots of other children
classifications. You can't reach each of them with
the same strategy or message, so they're not a
target group. Children under the age of 5 with
parents who live in large cities and are office
workers - that's a target market!


Even if you have a target market in mind, they must
be easily accessible or you are again in serious
trouble. The best Target Market members all belong
to some kind of organized group or association. For
example, assume that all lawyers in Texas belong to
the Texas Bar Association or some such group. If
you can get your message into that group's
newsletter or magazine, you've reached every
potential customer with just the one message
printed in just one publication! That's cheap, simple,
and easy marketing!


I once made the blunder of attempting to access
non-oil industry people in Texas who get money from
oil or gas production on their family lands. It failed
because these people have no common link. Many of
those people probably do subscribe to, and did read,
my ad in Farm and Ranch Magazine. Yet that magazine
link wasn't strong enough to work.


O.K. - enough talk!   List YOUR Target Market(s)
below:




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