Targeting a specific group or segment of the population has been an effective marketing strategy for businesses of all types for many years. After you decide to enter the Internet marketing arena and start an online home based business you must now decide on a product or products to promote and which sector of the population you’re going to approach with your offer.
Your merchandise, by its very nature, will attract certain people to your website whether they discover your home page through the search engines or they simply happen upon your web page by chance. Unfortunately, you won’t be able to attract enough people in this manner in order to sustain your business, so you need to make a concentrated effort to attract the people you feel will benefit the most from your product.
You will also want to find the individuals who may be looking for merchandise similar to yours on a regular basis to help solve their problems or satisfy their needs. These people will make up your target market and when starting out a marketer will generally break down their potential prospects into at least four segments defined by age, gender, income and occupation.
For example, it wouldn’t make much sense to advertise to a group who can’t afford to purchase your product, so knowing in advance where your best prospects are located will save you the time and money of a wasted campaign. The best approach is to know your business and your product so you can then target the people who need and want your merchandise and who are willing to pay for it.
If your home business merchandise is in demand mostly by the male segment of the population who are between the ages of 18 and 35 years with an average income of $35,000.00 or more per year and who are employed in the technological sector then these are the people you would want visiting your website. And this is how you will try to break down your niche during the segmentation process.
Other factors you may want to take into consideration are the geographic location and the family status of your potential clients. For example, certain areas of the country may have more of a propensity toward purchasing information products online than other locations.
Also, the number of family members may come into play in terms of their available expendable income which may influence their spending habits on the web and possessing this knowledge will undoubtedly alter your market segmentation strategy.
Income, of course, remains the most obvious factor because, in theory, the more money someone makes the more money they have to spend on what they want which makes them an easy target for most Internet marketers who are promoting what these people need.
The bottom line with regard to successfully targeting your online home business market is to know your business and your product and which group of people you most want to help with their wants and needs on the web.
