Target

The term target is used both as a noun and as a verb. As a noun, a target consists of specific individuals or groups that an organization wants to reach with its messages. Used that way, it would be appropriate to [Page 847]say that adult, 25-year-and-older, female customers of middle income would be a target for an integrated communication message about a specific product or service. As a verb, target means to set sights on that group or individual the organization wants to reach. Used as a verb, it would be appropriate for a political campaign advisor to say, “We will target young voters with college educations with X message.”

The term target is widely used in marketing, advertising, and public relations. It draws on a military, recreation, or hunting context where a shooter aims at a target. The goal is to strategically hit the intended mark. As a preliminary step to some other outcome, an organization might work to get a specific message to a target. A nonprofit organization might do that by using carefully selected channels to reach potential donors or volunteers who are sympathetic to the mission and cause of the organization.

Target is generally defined by goals and objectives, with various tactics used to reach the intended target audiences. Practitioners should always strategically choose their targets to achieve their desired results, keeping in mind that reaching target audiences is also a way to measure someone's goals and objectives. Some ways to evaluate the level of success in a campaign or communications initiative is to measure both quantitative outcomes, such as garnering media coverage or generating inquiries, as well as more qualitative gauges, such as increasing business, selling products, receiving service requests, changing audience behaviors, and altering perceptions of intended target groups.

The most basic communication model features a source, message, channel, and receiver. Typically, the source has no reason to reach everyone in a population. For instance, in a marketing scenario, there is no reason to try to get a product presentation before people who are unlikely or never customers. Thus, targeting is one way of increasing communication efficiency: putting the right message in front of the right market at the right time. Thus, the source designs a message that is crafted to appeal to the target audience. Then the source works to get that message through one or more channels that increase the likelihood that the target will see, read, view, and respond to the message.

Targets are defined in some way. Definitions may feature demographics such as age, gender, marital status, income, or religious affiliation. Targets may feature psychographics that depend on values, beliefs, lifestyles, and attitudes. A target may also be defined by featuring sociographics such as employment, identifications, affiliations, and cause relatedness.

Targets are determined in a marketing communication context based on the return on investment that appears to be achievable by getting a specific message to a particular, definable market—group or groups of customers—at a particular time. For instance, if a computer manufacturer had a specific product aimed at college students, those students, as well as the parents of those students, could constitute a target market. The company might advertise and use promotions in campus newspapers and magazines to reach students. They might link to Web sites that are popular with students. They might target reporters whose messages can feature promotional activities and materials in magazines, newspapers, radio, and television that are frequently used by college students. The company also might target administrators on college campuses. Thus, we can think of student customers as primary targets, which are targets that can receive a message directly through media channels, and as secondary targets, which are targets that can be reached through other targeted audiences. These targeted audiences might buy a computer for a student or they might pass the message to the student that a specific brand of computer was for sale at a special price for college students.

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