When the mentors introduced Adnan and June to the Three Gears of Business Design, they mentioned that one of the gears is about learning how to empathize with people and to listen to their stories so you can build a business that best suits your customers. They also discussed how this is essential to design thinking – making sure the customer is at the centre of your business planning and design.
This means you have to figure out who those customers are. This is your target market.
Target Customer (target market/target audience): a specific group of people that your product or service is aimed at.
Why is it important to define your target customer carefully?
Click on each of the three potential customers to find out!
How do you define your target customers?
When you think about your potential customers, you need to consider different things like age group, gender, marital status, job, income, occupation, life stages, lifestyle, values, attitudes, behaviour, occasion, health condition, ethnic background, geography, etc.
Other things you should think about when choosing or identifying your target customer:
- Do I feel passionate about them/do I care about them?
- Are they easily accessible?
- Are there enough of them? (large enough market size)
- Are there any related trends that I can take advantage of based on my STEEP analysis?
- What does my past experience or gut feeling say? (although it’s not always right, it’s worth listening to your instincts!)
You also need to be careful that you find the right balance. If you go too broad, then you’ll lose focus because you’re trying to reach too many people. Remember, niche is better, but if you go too narrow, then you probably won’t have enough customers.