Target Markets

Understanding potential clients, where they come from, and what characteristics they share helps companies both to develop services that will meet their clients' needs and to communicate with them effectively. Although each potential client is distinct, it is infeasible to custom-tailor promotional materials and marketing communications to each individual. On the other hand, a mass-marketing approach, whereby a marketer uses a single marketing strategy for all potential clients, can be equally ineffective, since it fails to address how products or services can meet individual customers' needs. A more effective approach is market segmentation, which entails dividing the market into distinct groups of potential clients having common characteristics. Targeting markets in this way allows the entrepreneur to focus marketing efforts on the segments that are most ...