Target group, or how do you get to know your customers?
For business
6 April 2023
A key element of running a business is sales. The further development and existence of the company depends on it. Audience targeting is extremely useful for this, because then you are able to reach those most interested in your offer. What is a target group and how do you select it? Sometimes you need the help of experts.
What is the target group?
Target group is the term used to describe the person or company to whom the message of your marketing and sales campaign is directed. The target group is therefore an indication of who you want your message to reach - you will use different forms and language when you want to catch the attention of young parents, teenagers or people experiencing their second youth.
It is not easy to accurately characterise a target group. From the pool of potential customers, it is necessary to select those who are genuinely interested in the purchase on offer, and then to reach them with a message that informs them about the offer and encourages them to buy the item.
Before you conclude that this is an unnecessary cost, it is worth bearing in mind that carrying out marketing activities targeted at a particular collective is an effective solution for virtually any business. Whether it's a family business or managing a multinational.
Certainly, large companies need to pay more attention to this than smaller businesses, where you may know most of your customers. Nevertheless, in order to widen their circle, you have to reach them in some way. 
Ways of defining the target group
How do you identify your target group? Find common characteristics. These cause members of a specific community to be more likely to realise a purchase. So what criteria stand out?
- Geographical criteria - representatives of the group are linked:
- region of residence (country, province or more precise location);
- place of residence: urban or rural;
- size of place of residence (e.g. cities with up to 100 000 or more than 500 000 inhabitants);
- Demographic criteria:
- age;
- gender;
- income;
- education;
- household size;
- profession exercised;
- religion practised;
- nationality.
- Psychodemographic criteria - identify the criteria that influence the propensity to buy:
- lifestyle;
- professed values;
- personality;
- Behavioural criteria - this category describes how people in the target group perceive the marketing message and what behaviours they exhibit towards the proposed offer:
- brand loyalty;
- willingness, or lack thereof, to purchase the product;
- the intensity of use of the good in question;
- attractiveness of product/brand attributes;
- attitude to goods.
What is the importance of defining a target audience for running a business?
Before you decide that, in your case, having a fixed target group is a pointless exercise, consider the effectiveness that can be achieved by narrowing down your target audience. The more individualised the message used, the greater the chances that the customer will decide to buy.
What's more, it can prove to be less costly. Creating huge advertising campaigns, with no guarantee of gaining audience interest, involves a lot of expense and is less cost-effective than thoroughly researching the market and then targeting a smaller community.
What should be taken into account when defining the target group?
The choice of target group should depend on the product or service as well as the sales campaign. It is worth considering whether the good in question is dedicated to a mass audience or whether it will be of interest to a specific group. A different message will characterise an advertisement for something for everyday use, such as cleaning chemicals, and another for services related to extreme sports.
Once the general characteristics of an item have been determined, one should move on. A target group should be assembled around the item in question, who will be interested in it and it will meet their needs.
The data held and the impressions of existing customers are helpful in determining this:
- analysis of purchasing preferences;
- observation of competition;
- marketing research;
- polling and sourcing data from external agencies.
Geographical and demographic criteria for defining the target group
There are several types of target groups, which are characterised by the way they are defined due to different features. Geographical criteria outline the reach and scope of a marketing campaign. They should therefore be tailored to the size of the business. If the activities are national, the target audience will be people permanently resident in Poland.
Reaching such a large circle of people is completely unnecessary when you own a local business. It is quite sufficient to show yourself to customers from a particular town or district. In special cases, the target group may be within the range of a few districts and nowhere further afield, e.g. in the case of small, local businesses.
If you run an online business, it usually covers the whole country. It's then worth looking at your shoppers' statistics, including which cities they come from. When the results are consistent, it makes sense to redirect the action of your marketing campaign and increase your chances of attracting new customers.
Demographic criteria are the second element necessary for good ad targeting. There are many products used by specific groups of people that are distinguished by gender (intimate hygiene products, aftershave lotions), age (hair loss products, anti-aging products), income (premium brands), religion (eating only certain foods) or profession (things that make everyday work easier). Targeting the right customers increases the chances of a successful campaign. 
Psychographic and behavioural criteria for defining the target group
Psychographics are not as simple to pin down as demographics and geography. It is a range of soft characteristics that define a given consumer, such as their interests, life decisions, or decisiveness and willingness to change. Specific behaviours will make up a given target group and constitute the characteristics of a given target market, e.g. for a bike shop the declared physical activity and interest in cycling sports may be of interest.
This kind of specification will work well for many specialised activities. However, a prior analysis of the target group is essential in order to identify common features.
The behavioural criterion is an extremely important factor in determining the form of an advertising campaign. The category outlines the behaviour of a particular group in response to advertising messages or offers. This includes interest in promotions, particular product features and functionality, value for money, etc.
Tools useful for defining the target group
There are a number of tools for defining your target audience that make it easy to personalise your message and allow you to reach where you need to be extremely effectively.
These include Google Analytics or Facebook Audience Insights. The former is designed to monitor website traffic: where the activity comes from, how many users visit the site at any given time, how much time they spend browsing, what software they used, and what products were most frequently viewed and of greatest interest.
Facebook Audience Insights is useful for checking the data and reactions of people who visit a company profile, observe it and react to posts, including adverts. This makes it possible to plan an effective advertising campaign that delivers the desired results.
Mistakes made when defining the target group
Bear in mind that it can be time-consuming to identify such a population, but it is not worth getting discouraged right away, but wait for the results of your work. In order to make them as fruitful as possible, it is advisable to avoid certain actions and behaviours that are not conducive to correct targeting:
- Try to be objective - you know the value of your product and can therefore be convinced that others should appreciate it too. If you're taking too personal an approach to the business, it's worth outsourcing to someone who will look at the whole business from the side.
- Evaluate your audience - the principle of small steps works in targeting. Start with a smaller group and gradually increase it. It is easier to see at what point increasing it loses its purpose.
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