The Anatomy of a Target Market
Building a target market goes far beyond simple demographics. It’s about really understanding what makes your audience tick, what they value, and how to connect with them on a deeper level.
In today’s world, consumers expect more from brands—they want to feel understood, valued, and supported. Our approach digs into psychographics, behaviour, and needs, giving us a full picture of your audience and how best to reach them.
To show you how this works in practice, we’ll walk you through a target market profile we created for one of our clients, a premium skincare brand. This breakdown will give you a sense of how much thought goes into crafting a marketing strategy that resonates with your audience.
1. Demographics: Start with the Basics, But Don’t Stop There
Demographics are often where most businesses stop. Age, gender, location—these are the foundational blocks of your target market, but they don’t give you the full picture.
For this client, we knew their target market was women aged 30+, busy, socially active, and conscious about skincare for both themselves and their families. This told us who they were, but not what they needed or valued. That’s where the next layers come in.
2. Psychographics: What Do They Value?
Psychographics take us deeper into why your audience makes decisions. For this skincare company, their ideal customer values clean living and results-driven skincare. She’s conscious about the ingredients in her products and prefers brands that align with her eco-conscious values.
But it’s not just about clean ingredients—she also wants to feel empowered through skincare education and a sense of connection with the brand’s community. This insight told us that it wasn’t enough to create a product that worked—it had to reflect her values.
3. Behavior: How Do They Act?
Understanding behaviour helps us figure out how to engage. Our audience for this business makes purchases based on trust and word-of-mouth recommendations from friends. She’s not just buying a product, she’s buying a brand she feels connected to, one that’s done the research on her behalf.
We also know that she values aesthetically pleasing products—those with beautiful packaging and delightful fragrances are key motivators in her buying decisions. For a skincare brand, this meant that the look and feel of the product was just as important as the results it delivered.
4. Media Consumption: Where Do They Hang Out?
Knowing where your audience spends their time online is crucial. The target market for this business is active on Instagram and Facebook, but consumes TikTok content as Instagram Reels. They rely heavily on word-of-mouth, but also appreciate visual content, which means our marketing strategy focused heavily on these platforms.
Understanding their preferences helped us create content that resonated with them in the spaces they already loved.
5. Needs & Wants: What Drives Them?
Finally, we look at the needs and desires that influence decision-making. For this target market, it’s about finding skincare that’s clean yet highly effective. These women want products that support their skin’s aging process while also smelling amazing and being a pleasure to use.
At the core of it, they’re looking for more than skincare—they want to feel confident, connected, and empowered through the products they choose.
Bringing It All Together
Understanding your audience at this level isn’t just a nice-to-have—it’s essential to creating a successful marketing strategy. By diving deep into the demographics, psychographics, behaviour, media consumption, and needs of your target market, you can tailor your message to truly connect with them.
At Have and Hold Marketing, this is what we do best. If you’re ready to take your business to the next level by building a deeper connection with your audience, we’d love to help.