العربية 
A company cannot focus on all market sectors. The company can only cater to limited segments. The sectors that the company wants to serve are called the target market, and the process of selecting a target market is referred to as targeting the market.
Market segmentation results in an overall division of the market into different sectors or parts. These sectors may be based on consumer characteristics, product characteristics, or both.
Once the market is divided into different sectors the company has to evaluate the different sectors and determine the number of divisions and objectives that it is targeting. It is simply an act or a process of selecting a target market.
What is targeting?
Definition of target market:
For clarity and simplicity, we first know the term target market. The signal is rooted because the latter is part of the overall market for the good or service.
The target market refers to a group of potential customers to whom the company wishes to sell its products and services, and this group also includes specific customers to whom the company directs its marketing efforts.
The consumers who constitute a target market share similar characteristics including purchasing geography, purchasing power, demographics and income.
Defining a target market is an essential step for any company in developing a marketing plan. Not knowing who your target market is can cost a lot of money and time for the company.
Definition of targeting:
Targeting in marketing is a strategy that divides a large market into smaller segments to focus on a specific group of customers within that audience, and also defines a segment of customers based on their unique characteristics and focuses only on their service.
Instead of trying to reach an entire market, a brand uses target marketing to put its energy into communicating with a specific and specific group within that market.
As for the types of division, they are four basic types that are divided as follows:
Demographic segmentation: age, gender, education, marital status, ethnicity, religion, etc.
Psychological segmentation: values, beliefs, interests, personality, lifestyle, etc.
Behavioral segmentation: buying or spending habits, user status, brand interactions, etc.
Geographic regions: district, area code, city, district, country, etc.
A brand may also benefit from business segmentation, taking into account things like industry, company size, or annual revenue.
Through market segmentation, brands become more specific about their target market. They can focus on a small group of customers who are most likely to benefit from and enjoy their products.
For example, a brand that sells day planners may decide to focus on a smaller, specific target market. Instead of marketing to the masses, they may focus solely on selling the planners to female business owners. Or, they can choose to market exclusively to high school teachers. Both examples are smaller, more specific segments of the potential market for today’s chart.
Importance of targeting in marketing:
Targeting in marketing is important because it is part of an overall marketing strategy. It affects advertising, as well as customer experience, branding, and business processes. When your company focuses on segmenting your target market, you can do the following:
Speak directly to a specific audience: Marketing messages resonate more deeply with audiences when readers can directly connect with the information. Brands with a large and diverse customer market are often faced with creating marketing campaigns that speak directly to their audience. Because its viewers are so different, few logos or stories can resonate with everyone on a personal level. With targeted marketing, you can alleviate this issue and focus on crafting messages for one specific audience.
Attract and convert high-quality leads: When you talk directly to the people you want to target, you are more likely to attract the right people. Your marketing will more effectively reach the people who are most likely to want to do business with you. When you connect with the right people, you are more likely to get qualified, high-quality leads that convert into paying customers.
Distinguish your brand from competitors: When you stop trying to speak to every customer in the market and start focusing on a smaller segment of that audience, you also start to differentiate from competitors in your industry. When customers can clearly identify your brand and unique selling proposition, they will choose you over a competitor who does not talk to them or specifically targets them. You can use your site in marketing to make your brand more popular and unique.
Build deeper customer loyalty: The ability to stand out from competitors by reaching your customers on a more personal, human level also creates long-term relationships. When customers learn about your brand and feel that you are an advocate for their specific views and needs, they are more likely to be more loyal to your brand and continue doing business with you over a longer period of time.
Improving products and services: Getting to know your customers more intimately helps you look at your products and services in a new way. When you have a deep understanding of your target audience, you can put yourself in their shoes and see how you can improve your offerings. Learn what features you can add to better serve your customers.
Stay focused: Finally, the benefit of using targeting in marketing is that it also helps your brand and your team. Targeted marketing allows you to be more specific about marketing strategies, initiatives, and the direction of your brand. It helps you clarify your vision and get everyone in the organization on the same page. You have a little more guidance when it comes to shaping the upcoming plans for both marketing and the business as a whole. The focused approach helps you fully optimize your resources, time and budget.
Examples of targeting marketing:
Defining a target market for your business is an essential step to remaining viable. Trying to sell hamburgers to vegetarians will only result in a waste of time, effort, money, and a bad brand image.
The industry giants dominate the market because they manage to get the right product and service to the right person. Here are some examples of your target market:
Facebook target market;
The development of Facebook’s target market with the company. The founders targeted college students in the United States in its early years, which can be seen on the playing field as well.
Facebook has now expanded its target market and positioned itself as a social media platform mostly used by middle-aged mobile (25-34 years) with adults in 157 countries.
Snapchat’s target market;
Snapchat’s target market is over 178 million users under the age of 25 (18-24), most of whom are still in high school and college, preferably female.
McDonald’s target market;
McDonald’s targets students, employees, and professionals in the 8 to 45 age group that belong to the low- and middle-income groups with an easy-going, neglected personality.
Defining the target market:
Analyze your target market begins with yourself. You must focus on 5 questions for your potential customers to determine the most beneficial target market for your business;
Who: Start by asking yourself who will buy your product. Are they children, teens, millennials, or baby boomers? Are they male or female? Are they a classified service or are they self-employed? What is their annual income?
What: What kind of products and services do they buy now and what do they expect from them? Does your product fit their requirements?
When: When do they buy the product? Is it daily or rare? When do they use the product?
Where: Where do they live? Where do they use the product?
Why: Do they buy it because it’s their need or is it a luxury product for them?
Once analyzed, you can distinguish between the profitable segment and the unprofitable segment. Once the market is segmented, determine the ideal market segment for your business if it meets the following characteristics.
Broad Enough: Is the market segment large enough to make you profitable now and in the future as well?
Target market is still growing: the big market today can be a dead market tomorrow. Always analyze your growth statistics before moving forward and choose the sector as your target market.
You don’t have many competitors: Having some competitors can be beneficial to your company. But having a market full of existing players is not a good market until the time you have an exceptionally good product to position yourself differently.
Your product can satisfy their needs / desires / luxuries: Does your product have everything needed to meet the needs of your target customers?
Market targeting strategies:
Undifferentiated Marketing:
There may not be strong differences in customer characteristics. Alternatively, the cost of developing a separate marketing mix for separate segments may outweigh the potential gains to more accurately meet customer needs.
Under these circumstances, the company will decide to develop a single marketing mix for the whole market without undergoing segmentation, this strategy can occur by default, and companies lacking marketing orientation may adopt this strategy due to lack of customer knowledge.
A company that uses an undifferentiated targeting strategy mainly adopts a comprehensive market philosophy; The market is seen as one large market without individual sectors.
The company uses a single marketing mix for the entire market, the company assumes that individual customers have similar needs that can be satisfied by a common marketing mix.
Typically, the first company in the making uses an undifferentiated targeting strategy. There is no competition at this stage and the company does not feel the need to tailor the marketing mix to the needs of the market sectors.
Since there are no alternative offers, customers must purchase the flagship product. Ford’s Model T is a classic example of an undifferentiated targeting strategy. This strategy is also followed by companies marketing commodity products such as sugar.
Diversified marketing or multi-sector targeting:
When market segmentation reveals several potential target sectors that the company can profitably serve, a specific marketing mix can be developed to attract all or some of the sectors. A differentiated marketing strategy exploits the differences between marketing sectors by designing a specific marketing mix for each sector.
A company pursuing a multi-sector targeting strategy serves two or more well-defined sectors and develops a distinct marketing mix for each of them. Separate brands have been developed to serve each sector.
It is the most desirable strategy for the market having the potential to generate sales volume, higher profits, greater market share and economies of scale in manufacturing and marketing. But strategy involves greater product design, production, merchandising, inventory, marketing research and management costs.
The auto market is more clearly segmented. There are sectors for small cars, luxury cars, sports vehicles, and more.
Most of the automakers like General Motors, Toyota, Honda and others offer cars for all sectors. Although Toyota entered the US market with small cars, it ultimately chose to operate in most sectors.
Focus on focus:
Several sectors can be identified but a company may not serve them all. Some may be unattractive or incompatible with the company’s business strengths. A company may target only one segment with one marketing mix. Understands the needs and motivations of the sector’s clients and designs a specialist marketing mix.
Firms have discovered that concentrating resources and meeting the needs of a specific market segment is more profitable than distributing resources across several different sectors. Starbucks succeeded by focusing exclusively on customers who wanted gourmet coffee products.
This strategy is suitable for companies with limited resources as these resources may be over-stretched if they are competing in several sectors. Concentrated marketing allows focusing research and development expenditures on meeting the needs of one group of clients and dedicating managerial activities to understanding their needs and meeting their needs.
Customized Marketing:
In some markets, individual customer requirements are unique and their purchasing power is sufficient to make designing a separate marketing mix for each customer a viable option. Many service providers such as advertisements, marketing research firms, architects, and attorneys change their offerings on a client basis.
They will discuss their requirements face to face with each client and design their services accordingly. Custom marketing is also found in regulatory markets due to the high value of orders and special needs of clients.
What is your target market? Which strategy is right for you?
Determining the target market and targeting strategy requires after in-depth studies, as we referred to it above, and simple mistakes in this regard may cost you your entire project, so Raya Al-Rowad provides you with its services in terms of studying your project idea, determining the target market, and your appropriate strategy for targeting, with the aim of making it successful Your project.
