How do you validate your target markets? This is a crucial question for any marketer who wants to create effective and relevant campaigns for their potential customers. In this article, you will learn what target market validation is, why it is important, and how to do it in four simple steps.
Target market validation is the process of testing whether your assumptions about who your ideal customers are, what they need, and how they behave are accurate and realistic. It involves collecting and analyzing data from various sources, such as surveys, interviews, online platforms, and analytics tools, to confirm or reject your hypotheses. By validating your target markets, you can avoid wasting time and money on marketing strategies that do not resonate with your audience or solve their problems.
Target market validation is important because it helps you to understand your customers better and tailor your value proposition and marketing messages to their specific needs, preferences, and pain points. It also helps you to identify new opportunities, segments, and niches that you might have overlooked or underestimated. By validating your target markets, you can increase your chances of reaching and converting the right people, generating more leads, sales, and loyalty, and gaining a competitive edge in your industry.
PRETOTYPE AND TEST LIKE TESLA As innovation facilitator of 100+ projects, I like to share how Tesla interested buyers for their first car. In 2003, the founders of Tesla had an ambitious idea (an all-electric 2-door sports car). In order to convince potential buyers to order its car, Tesla created a pretotype of what the car would look like. Lotus supplied Tesla with a ‘glider’ Elise - which was filled with models of key components. This was not a prototype, because the vehicle didn’t function. Tesla was able to show buyers a close proxy for the final design. Tesla asked “Will you put down a $5,000 deposit to have it built to order? From this test Tesla secured several hundred deposits, a non-trivial result to reassure their Investors
The first step is to define your target market segments, which are groups of customers who share similar characteristics, such as demographics, psychographics, behavior, or needs. You can use various criteria to segment your market, such as age, gender, location, income, education, lifestyle, interests, goals, challenges, motivations, or buying patterns. You can also use existing data from your customer base, industry reports, or market research to segment your market. The key is to be as specific and realistic as possible and avoid making too many assumptions.
The second step is to create customer personas, which are fictional representations of your ideal customers within each segment. Customer personas help you to humanize your target markets and empathize with their perspectives, emotions, and expectations. You can create customer personas by using a template or a tool that includes information such as name, photo, background, personality, needs, pain points, goals, values, preferences, and behaviors. You can also use data from your validation sources, such as surveys or interviews, to create customer personas.
The third step is to validate your target market segments and personas by gathering feedback from real or potential customers who match your criteria. Surveys, interviews, online platforms, and analytics tools are all great methods for validating your target markets. For example, you can use online platforms such as Google Forms or SurveyMonkey to create and distribute surveys that test your assumptions. You can also conduct one-on-one or group interviews with your target markets using platforms such as Zoom or Skype. Additionally, platforms such as social media, forums, blogs, or review sites can be used to observe and interact with your target markets. And finally, Google Analytics or Facebook Insights can be used to track and measure the performance of your website or social media pages in order to understand how your target markets respond to your content, offers, or calls to action.
The final step is to refine your target market segments and personas based on the data and insights that you collected from your validation methods. To do this, consider which segments and personas are the most viable, profitable, and reachable for your business, as well as which are the most interested, engaged, and satisfied with your product or service. Additionally, ask which segments and personas are most aligned with your value proposition and marketing messages, and which need more attention, education, or persuasion from your marketing efforts. Additionally, take into account any changes or evolution since you defined them. By refining these segments and personas, you can guarantee that they reflect the current situation of your customers and inform and optimize your marketing strategies and campaigns.