DIY Marketing Services: Sizing Up Your Buyers

Exactly how valuable is it to know the size of your potential market? Valuable enough that major corporations spend millions of dollars every year on marketing services in order to determine just that.

But, depending on the market for your business—or even a new product or service you’d like to offer—it’s often possible to use the same tools used by market research professionals on a do-it-yourself basis.

Almost all market research begins with just one very important question: Who are your potential customers? This means not just any and everyone who could use your product or service, but primarily your preferred customers. These are the people for whom your product or service was specifically developed, who have the greatest need for it, and whose level of income supports the money to purchase it at the price point you’ve determined—i.e., your target market.

Different aspects of what you have to offer will influence your target market. For example, if you’re selling a new type of children’s game, you might think of your target market as kids between the ages of 8 and 12, either nationally or regionally, depending on the scope of your business. But, if you consider this a particularly expensive game, your target market might be something more like “children of families with an average household income of $100,000 or higher,” which will narrow your focus considerably.

The single most useful place to start for your Do-It-Yourself marketing in terms of sizing your target market is www.census.gov, the website of the US Census Bureau (keeping in mind that information from the last US Census is from the year 2000). This free online resource provides an initial point for assessing a broad scope of possible consumers based on various factors as they relate to your product. Once you access the site, you will see the Data Find tool on the right hand panel. This search resource includes Population Finder, a tool for a population count for states and QuickFacts, a tool that provides an area profile for cities within certain states. For instance, in the QuickFacts you might look at the results for households with children, and further narrow your scope based on the average household income within that geographic scope.

Another way to use www.census.gov is like this. Say your target market has to do with a certain business or industry, such as furniture store owners with stores big enough for using your industry-specific software. In this case, your target market might be something along the lines of “furniture store owners with 5+ employees.” This time, you might consider searching in the Business and Industry section of the US Census site, which will once again provide some basic information in terms of the number of businesses in each sector by region, state or nationally, along with information about business size, ethnicity/gender of ownership, years in business, etc.

But, if your target business market is even more specific—furniture store owners who also carry office products—then your best bet for research instead of the US Census, will most likely be sources from the trade industry associated with that market. Trade industries tend to conduct useful research within their industries in order to help members stay abreast of trends, as well as to keep members of the press and/or government aware of the scope of their industry through press releases and reports.

Once you have done some preliminary searches through the US Census and through trade industry resources, and you have an approximate total number of people in your target market, you can begin to make some meaningful decisions in terms of overall marketing strategies based on the marketing budget you have set aside. You can begin to assess advertising rates for various media and how successful those media are in reaching the most people in your target market. These resources will help you make some decisions about what fraction of your target market you will need to reach in order to survive and thrive. n