How to Understand Your Target Market
How to understand your target market
Understanding your target audiences’ motives for attendance is paramount to your success as an exhibitor. This knowledge plays a significant role in capturing the attention of your audience and providing a service that is equal to the individual’s expectations.
How well do you know your target audience? During the pre exhibition stage, you should ask yourself a few questions about your target market such as:
- Who are they?
- Why are they attending
- What do they need/what problems do they have
Why you need to know – Researching your target market provides a number of benefits:
- Align your exhibit goals and objectives
- Increase or create a customer database for future sales and promotional activities
- Tailor your product and services to the target market
- Understand who uses your product and why
- Gain a competitive advantage
As a result, this creates a competitive advantage for your business.
What do you need to know? Exhibitions are extremely competitive and providing a service that aligns with the target markets expectations is critical.
- Demographics (age, sex, income, education)
- Geographics (region,
- Psychographics (lifestyle, socio-economic status)
- Behavioral (Occasion, usage rates, user status e.g. first time or professional, benefits sought after)
How to gather the information
Existing knowledge: Amongst your records you’ll be able to identify certain trends, particularly demographics.
Gathering data at the show: During an exhibition is an excellent time to source information on your target market. There are a number of ways to achieve this and the data collection technique you use will depend on your goals and objectives.
- Quantitative Research
The most common form of research, quantitative research is easily conducted and usually the most cost effective. Questionnaires and surveys are commonly used, as they are easy for attendees and time efficient.
- Qualitative Research
This data is rich in content and is an excellent way of identifying the attendees psychological and behavioral traits. Data can be obtained in the following forms:
- Interviews
Regardless of the data collection process chosen, it is critical that you align your questions, written or verbal, to assist in accurately answering whether you have achieved your overall goals and objectives.
