Inventors: “Everyone” is not your target market.

Article in a sentence: Research & define your market relative to your invention for optimal sales.

Inventing, manufacturing or licensing marketing a product is like starting a small business. Besides financial needs, projections, costs, distribution factors and the like, many inventors seem to lack knowledge of their market. Just as any business, failure rates for inventing are in the high ninety-percentile and you can mitigate certain risks by using free information to help guide you through the process. Within this article, I will try to tackle an introduction to narrowing your target market to sell to specific demographics.

“Many times when I ask “who is your target market?” they will throw their arms real wide exclaiming “Well EVERYONE!” But this just is not smart business.” This is a quote from Rudy Ortiz of the Small Business Development Center in Sandy,Utah, which is a non-profit organization which assists with startup help for small businesses. Rudy and myself were having a conversation concerning targeting demographics and marketing strategies. What he means, and what many business professionals know, is that even if your product has a broad appeal to many different market groups, you cannot design a singular logo, branding scheme and advertising campaign for all of these different segments. Targeting “everyone” is a great way to include “no one” and alienating “most.” Everyone is NOT your target market.

When thinking about your product branding and advertising, you must keep in mind your goal. This is to convey the products function, meaning and benefits to your target consumer and affect a sale. Your target customer can be a full range of different backgrounds and income levels, but to garner the most sales you need to be able to target your “core” segment. By “core” I mean those who will give your product the most exposure, purchase the most of your product and become loyal longtime customers.

Take an example with Apples highly successful iPod. The iPod has a very broad appeal to many age groups and demographics, but does not design its ad campaigns around all the potential markets, but rather chose a specific “young” or “hip” demographic for its early campaign. You may recall the original TV and web ads which featured dancing silhouettes.

These iPod ads conveyed a number of adjectives for the target audience to “feel.” Energy, excitement, enjoyment, youth, motion, fun, trendy, popular. Contrast the ads for the early (not the later) iPhone ads, which targeted demographic of men in their 30’s with $70,000+ annual income

This ad, with the original price tag of nearly $500, was definitely “business person” oriented. As pricing came down, ad’s changed to run a larger gamut of demographics.

And yet, even with all the new iPhone ads which are more “down to earth” and “understanding” to a younger generation, the demographics remain nearly the same as they convey the same benefits of the iPhone. Think about the differences, and the similarities of the iPhone ads, and why the core clientele has not shifted thus far.

“…the demographic composition of iPhone users, which are similar to the demographics of other smartphone owners… likely to be: male, aged 25-34, earn more than $100,000 and have a college degree.”

If you believe your product has a broad range of customer potential something, that can be helpful is thinking about the intentions your customers would have by purchasing your item. What are the benefits of your product which is appealing to this broad swath of customers? Narrow this by targeting your core audience with a marketing campaign for the core segment. Many free resources are available online for examining different demographic data, and some are included at the end of this article. With your marketing campaign, always keep in mind your “core” group of customers. Even if your product appeals to several markets, each market should have a different ad campaign and this can be very taxing, time and money wise, on the first time inventor.

Do your due diligence in market research, narrow your marketing campaign to your “core” customers, monitor its progress, adjust and repeat all over again.

Our own client Tina Pantoja is the inventor and owner of MuVi Seat Holster. Tina came to Design My Idea with a finished product and a manufacturer already lined up. With some small tweaks for manufacturing to the CAD files, we then designed the packaging and logo scheme below.

Tina’s target market for her product is iPhone and comparable smart phone buyers; mainly business professionals who travel intensively. These customers already have invested an above average amount of money into a media-phone combination device, and so enjoy the “latest and greatest” technology. Given this information, our packaging design and logo take into account the sleekness of an iPhone-type device, very quickly relate the function and benefits of the product, and showcase the product in action. It is meant to first catch your eye, quickly demonstrate the product, showcase the benefits, and facilitate a sale.

Good luck!

Some Resources:

Small Business Development Center
A download is available of an example from the Small Business Development Center, while Design My Idea was looking at marketing an online Performance Assessment tool to small and medium businesses.

Chamber of Commerce
Marketing Demographics Research
Center for Demographic Research
Demographic Research

Design My Idea

---

Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)

• Step 3 Business Plan – A Breakdown
• Target Markets
• Product Manager
• Entelligence: Close to the edge