Small Business Resources, Business Advice and Forms from AllBusiness.com

Understanding Your Target Market

No business can be all things to all people. Instead, you must reach specific customers and satisfy their particular needs. As an entrepreneur, you must identify those customers and understand as precisely

as possible what they want.

The process of finding and studying potential customers for your venture doesn’t have to be complex or expensive, but it is extremely important. In a nutshell, it requires you to find out everything you can about the customers whom you intend to pursue. Once you have that information, you’ll have a much better chance of capturing those customers for your business.

Demographics

Begin your research by checking the demographics of the region that you plan to target. You’ll want to know the population’s makeup in terms of age, gender, income level, occupation, education, and family circumstances: married with children, singles, or retired. To find that information, you’ll need to spend some time online. Do a Google search to find the most recent edition of the Country and City Data Book, published by the U.S. Department of Commerce. This research will give you the most recent census data on the area you wish to target.


Starting and Failing at Business: Why Persistence Pays
Host Hattie Bryant of Small Business School interviews Errol Pollnow and John Stockbridge of Brookstone Technologies, a wireless network company in Perth, Australia.