Determination of target audience

Key Steps to Determine The Target Audience

For a New Product
 1. Uniqueness
This market research study is undertaken to understand
the key features about the product to be launched –
• Lifespan of the product
• The raw materials required to make the end product
• The end result of the finished product
• The prospective section of consumers for whom the
product is to be launched
 2. Demographics
The study about the demographic details helps gain
insight about the specific group of consumers who are
likely to buy the product. This market study involves
gathering details pertaining to –
• The gender of the consumer
• The age group under which the consumer falls
• The educational background of the consumers and the
income category under which they come
 3. Target audience
This study involves gaining specific details about prospects
such as –
• How does the target audience spend their leisure
hours
• The place where the target customers reside
• The books they like to read
• The movies they like to watch
• The music they love to hear
• The values of their life and their religious beliefs
 4. Competitive Analysis
The best way to determine the market for your product
is by doing a competitive analysis including –
• Comparison with other products of similar nature
• Market share and brand value of the competing
products
• Pricing and other benefits to the customers
• Positive and negative features of the competing
products
• Get an idea about the target market for your product
Steps involved in developing an
advertising program.
 Organization allocate millions and even billions of dollars
for advertising. It is important that the marketers
effectively use the advertising resources to make the
marketing effort successful. The steps involved vary from
company to company but there are five major steps that
organizations can take in developing an advertising
program.
 1) Mission/ Objective
2) Budget
3) Message
4) Media plan
5) Evaluation
1) Advertising mission/ objective
 The advertising objective refers to the specific goals an
organization wants to achieve in a specified time with
specified audience.
 The marketing strategy which specifies the target market,
marketing positioning and marketing mix elements, gives
direction to the advertising objectives. The planning which
is done for the steps in making decisions for promotion
activities form the basis of each promotion tool.
Classification of advertising objective:
 Informative advertising – In informative advertising the aim is to build
primary demand. It creates awareness about new products or new features
of existing products. For example, In some markets, Motorola advertised its
year old Moto X style model by highlighting that the device was available
with the latest android software. Samsung advertising its Galaxy S7
Smartphone as water resistant with exceptional camera.
 Persuasive advertising – Here the motive is to create preference for the
company’s product. It is also known as Comparative advertising. Company’s
highlight the attributes of their products which are better than the
competitors. For example, Duracell’s advertisement on long lasting
batteries as compared to others.
 Reminder advertising – This advertising is done to persuade repeat
purchasing. It is mostly done when the product or service is in the maturity
stage and there is presence of competitor products. Colgate asking
customers to regularly use its toothpaste to avoid tooth decay.
Reinforcements advertising – It is to convince the existing users of
company’s products that they have made a right choice. The aim is to
ensure that the existing users don’t switch to competitor products.
2) Determining the advertising budget

 Advertising budget is a financial document that outlines

the total amount allocated for advertising along with the
information on how the amount will be spent.
 The management has to decide on the right amount to be
allocated so that less amount should not result in
ineffective advertising and excess amount should not raise
the expenditure which will eat into the profits of the
company.
 Some company’s rely on Percent of Sales. This method
sets aside a predetermined percent of sales for
advertising.
Factors that can be considered when
deciding on the advertising budget-
a) Stage of
product in
product life
cycle – New
products require
intense advertising
to create awareness
in the target market.
Whereas, products
in maturity stage
have less advertising
expenses as the
motive of advertising
is just to remind and
reinforce the
company’s products.
b) Market share
and consumer
base – Brands
with high market
share usually
require less
advertising budget
as a percentage to
sales. Similarly, a
brand which wants
to increase its
market share, will
need to invest
heavily in
advertising which
will need high
advertising budget.
c) Competition
and clutter –
Among lot of
competitors and
advertising clutter
in the target
market, a brand
trying to be a
leader will need to
invest heavily in
advertising to
make a mark on
its potential
buyers. Even if the
competition is less,
the brand will
need extensive
advertising to
stand out from the
clutter of
advertisements
from different
organizations.
d) Advertising
frequency –
Marketers need to
be aware of the
frequency of the
advertisements in
the target market
when allocating
the advertising
budget.
e) Product
substitutability –
Highlighting product
features to
differentiate it from
substitute products in
the market will need
advertising regularly.
3) Advertising message
 Just creating an expensive advertisement will not serve the
purpose unless it is creative. The most creative part in
advertising is working on the advertising campaign. It takes into
consideration what to say to the target audience and how to
say it so that the buyers will listen, understand and remember
the message when making buying decisions.
 (i) The message should highlight something interesting, and
invoke the desirability in the consumers.
 (ii) The message should highlight the exclusiveness of the
product that is not available with other products of same kind
from different brands in the market.
 (iii) The message should be believable.
Creative advertising can be presented in 3
forms of execution-
 (i) Style – slice of life, musical, lifestyle (how product fits in
certain lifestyle), personality symbol, fantasy, technical
expertise, mood or image (beauty, serenity, love, etc.),
scientific evidence (some scientific study or analysis
done), testimonial evidence (product endorsing by people
or well-known celebrities).
 (ii) Tone – Tones can be positive, humorous, informative,
self-deprecating, and in rare cases negative. Sometimes
two or more tones are combined.
 (iii) Words – Attention getting and memorable words also
help in creating a creative advertisement. McDonald’s, “I’m
loving it”, 7-Up’s,“the Un-cola”.
4) Deciding on the Media

 The next step after finalizing the message is to select the most
effective (high impact) and efficient (less costly, within the
budget) media for communicating the message to the masses.
 The factors considered are –
 i) Target audience media habits – Internet advertising on
websites and mobiles if best vehicle to reach the teenagers as
they regularly visit internet sites and applications.
 (ii) Product characteristics – Does the product need
demonstration? Electronic products can best be advertised on
televisions as they have visual and motion elements for proper
demonstration. Fashion apparels need colourful presentation
hence best advertised on magazines, online and television.
 iii) Message characteristics – for example, a soon to
be launched product can be advertised on television as
well as magazines. But a discount sale will need immediate
communication in the target market. It will be more
effective if advertisements are made through outdoor
advertising, newspapers, radio, etc.
 (iv) Cost – creating an advertisement to be telecast on
television is costlier than an advertisement created for
newspapers, radio, etc.
5) Media Evaluation
 An organization should have effective planning and control on
the advertising program to measure its effectiveness. Most
commonly used methods for measuring the effectiveness are-
 1) Communication-effect research.
 Consumer feedback method consumers are asked some
questions on the ad and their feedback is analyzed for its
effectiveness
 Portfolio tests take a customer through various ads. And at the
end the customers are asked to recall the ads and their
content.
 Laboratory tests use equipment to check the consumer’s
physiological reactions like heartbeat, pupil dilation, heartbeat,
etc. when exposed to the ad.
 2) Sales effect research – Organisations measure the
effect of advertising expenditure on the sales. These
measures are difficult to measure as the change in sales
could have been because of many reasons like price
changes, changes in competition, changes in economic
conditions, etc.
 (i) Historical Sales – Advertising relationships- Here the
historical relationship is analyzed between the changes in
sales and the advertising expenditure in that period.
Usually quarterly, half-yearly and yearly data is considered
for this analysis.
 (ii) Experimental studies – To understand the relation
between advertisement and its influence on the sales,
experimental studies can be used. One such method is
test market approach. The effect on sales is measured in
few cities where consumers are exposed to
advertisements and also in cities where no advertisement
is run.