Upholstered furniture business plan. Production of cabinet furniture: business plan. Expenses and income

The target audience

In any type of business, it is very important for entrepreneurs to first determine the category of buyers who will be interested in the goods or services offered, to study their needs, tastes, interests, and other characteristics. This analysis is called determination target audience. It is the absence of this information that leads to the fiasco of the product in the sales and supply market, or significantly increases the costs of marketing and product promotion. On the contrary, research of the target audience allows you to develop an effective marketing strategy, contributes to entering new areas of the market, gaining consumer attention and loyalty, increasing sales, and, accordingly, profits.

Based on the tasks facing the definition of the consumer category, we can formulate the concept of the target audience as follows: this is a group of people who are similar in some individual characteristics and preferences: age, gender, region of residence, psychological characteristics, hobbies, income level and other criteria, which I will discuss in detail below.

As you know, demand creates supply: do it yourself marketing research, without special knowledge, is quite difficult, so almost always identifying the target audience is ordered to professionals. It is much faster, more economical, and gives an almost one hundred percent guarantee of results. Now we have come to the point that the topic of target audience research is a good, profitable business idea, because the demand for such work is very high.

Knowing your customers is important for both online businesses and entrepreneurial activity offline. Moreover, even if the business has been operating for several years, it is always possible to correct mistakes or “move” sales from a “dead point” with the help of such analysis. It will not be difficult for almost anyone to organize an offer of services for researching the target audience - if only they had the desire, Internet skills, and small stock“gray matter” for analyzing the received information. The knowledge gained from this publication will be quite enough to implement the proposed business idea, and in a short time position yourself as a specialist in target marketing.

The first stage of target audience research is market segmentation - determining the part of it that can be effectively filled with the proposed product. Segmentation will allow you to identify the type of potential consumers and concentrate your efforts on them. This analysis unites people according to several common characteristics:

• Demographic indicators– as I already said, these are: gender, age category, geographical position, income level. To this you can add nationality, marital status, profession.
• Geographical location– living in a large or small town, village, village, with a certain population density.
• Psychological characteristics– lifestyle, moral and spiritual values, interests, some personal qualities and inherent character traits.
• Attitude to the proposed product– readiness to purchase, loyalty, frequency of consumption.
• Circumstances– how urgently the product is needed, in what volumes, with delivery or not, delivery method, etc.
• Manner of acquisition– purchase out of habit, spontaneous purchase, deliberate purchase, purchase due to extreme need, etc.

Methods of target audience research

Once a separate market segment in which the target audience is based has been identified, it needs to be studied and an image drawn up. potential consumer. To do this, they resort to several basic offline and online methods.

Offline methods:

• Conducting an oral survey or written survey among a selected group.
• Personal interviews in so-called “focus groups”.
• Telephone surveys or sending surveys by email.
• “Desk method” - studying existing information on the target audience.
• Observing customers at points of sale - the “secret shopper” method.

A highlight among others is Sherrington’s method, which is called “5W”. These are the five questions that English language begin with the letter “w”, designed to answer the main points necessary to draw up a minimal portrait of the consumer: what - what (type of product), who - who (type of buyer), why - why (motivation to buy), when - when (in what time the purchase is made), where – where (place of sale).

Online methods:

The study of the target audience on the Internet can be carried out, for example, by studying user profiles (that is, using the information that a person openly provides about himself), or by analyzing the traffic to an Internet resource. There is another, universal method of study called “targeting” or “targeting”. This method is based on processing search queries, in other words, what product, service, or information a particular user is looking for on the World Wide Web, what sites he visits, and what kind of purchases he makes.

However, the concept of targeting is somewhat broader than just analyzing the target audience, and also includes a display mechanism advertisements exactly the group of people to whom your attention is directed.

Based on this, the types of targeting are determined:

• Thematic targeting.
• Time targeting.
• Targeting for the selection of advertising platforms.
• Targeting based on socio-demographic characteristics.
• Targeting by psychophysiological type of consumer.
• Targeting by geographic location.

It is the use of these methods for the purpose of determining and target audience research contributes to the formation of consumer demand. In other words, what we eat, what we wear, what we drive, sleep, or even who we choose as our life partners is determined by advertising. And with the help of skillful application of this technique of influence, you can literally “impose” your products certain group people - the target audience. But for this you need to know her needs.

How to make money from this

So, you already have a relatively clear understanding of the mechanism for researching the target audience, and you feel the desire and strength to start generating income in this lesson. Where to start, how and where to find your first clients, and how to develop further in this direction?

First of all, you need to understand that most entrepreneurs are well aware that spending a certain amount on researching the target audience will pay off many times over in the future. It’s just that some of them need a little “nudge” to the decision to order such an analysis. This can be achieved by using a newsletter offering your services by e-mail; you can and even should use the knowledge you have already acquired and identify for yourself the target audience that requires such services.

You definitely need to create your own online resource, which will contain detailed information about the types of services provided, a price list, and contact information. At the “promotion” stage, I would advise actively using discounts, holding various promotions, and, of course, advertising wherever possible, creating, so to speak, “aggressive pressure.” You can also find clients on various freelance exchanges; you cannot disdain traditional methods: advertising in the media, posting advertisements, etc. I think that with proper, active advertising work, promotion of your website, and a successful combination of circumstances (although this is the last thing you need to rely on), the initial stage will not drag on for long, and after a few months there will be no end to clients. I wish you success!