Who is your Target Market?

Customer Profile How do I describe them? What do they need? How many of them are in my proposed area? What are their spending habits? What is the process customers use to buy the product(s)? What is my geographic market?

Customers Demographics Research the 'demographics' of your community, and divide it into market segments: Age: children, teens, young, middle, elderly Gender: male, female Education: high school, college, university Income: low, medium, high Marital status: single, married, divorced Ethnic and/or religious background Family life cycle: newly married, married for 10 – 20 years, with or without children.

Buyer Interests Lifestyle: conservative, exciting, trendy, economical Social class: lower, middle, upper Opinion: easily led or opinionated Activities and interests: sports, physical fitness, shopping, books Attitudes and beliefs: environmentalist, security conscious.

Buyer Behavior Who buys, when, where, what and how? Who is the actual decision maker for the purchase? What are the stages of the buying process? How long is the buying process?

Survey Format Keep it simple. Include instructions for answering all questions included on the survey. Begin the survey with general questions and move towards more specific questions. Keep each question brief. Design a questionnaire that is graphically pleasing and easy to read. Remember to pre-test the questionnaire. Mix the form of the questions. Use scales, rankings, open-ended questions and closed-ended questions for different sections of the questionnaire. The "form" or way a question is asked may influence the answer given.

Question Format Close-end questions – "yes" or "no" choose from a list of several answer choices. Scales that rank answers For example, a respondent may have the choice to rank their feelings towards a particular statement. The scale may range from "Strongly Disagree", "Disagree" and "Indifferent" to "Agree" and "Strongly Agree." Open-end questions - Respondents answer questions in their own words. Completely unstructured questions allow respondents to answer any way they choose. Word association questions ask respondents to state the first word that comes to mind when a particular word is mentioned. Sentence, story or picture completion questions ask respondents to complete partial sentences, stories or pictures in their own words. a question for commuters might read: "My daily commute between home and office is _____ miles and takes me an average of ______ minutes. I use the following mode of transportation: _______."