Starting a small business

(a) Describe how to identify the target market.

What is a Target market?
Definition 1: A 'target market or target Audience is the market segment which a particular product is marketed to. It is often defined by age, gender and/or socio-economic grouping.
Reference: www.decisionanalyst.com/glossary/TGlossary.dai
Definition 2: The segment of the market that a particular brand is focusing its marketing activities on. Similar to the term Target Audience, but includes all marketing activities (not just media advertising).
Reference: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Target_market
Any product worth its salt can be sold, however a lack of proper marketing can prevent even truly great products from being sold. Knowing who the product targets is the first step in developing a potent marketing strategy for after you have found your target markets the marketing process of attracting customer becomes a whole lot simpler. There are many ways in which a business could identify their target market for example:
Age – I can identify my target market with the use of age, by doing this an organisation will know which ads and products are suitable for which ever age group select.

income – i can identify my target market through the amount of money a potential customer earns for example the prices of my products range from £45.00 – £90.00 which even working class person can afford so I will be marketing my products to everyone of whatever their social class/income class.

Sex– I can identify my target market through the gender of my potential customers by doing this i will know how masculine or feminine the advertisement of my products should be.

Nationality/Race/ethnic background – I can identify my target market through the nationality race & ethnic origin of my potential customers by doing this I will know can do some research of different nationalities which will give me a greater insight on what sort of clothing I should introduce to my store to attract or different types of customers from different back grounds.

Size
How large is your target market?
Are there 1,000 business buyers?
10 million potential consumers Ready to purchase your product?
Or a small handful of very large target customers?

The products I will be selling are extremely popular with teenagers in the UK, and according to answers.encyclopedia.com there are over 249,100 people living the Borough of Haringey and Enfield. My business will be set in the Borough of Haringey ‘Tottenham’ so I the size of my entire market consist of over 249,100 potential buyers. Bearing in mind that not all of those people would be males I will now half that number to give me a good probable statistical idea of how many potential buyer I have that fit the criteria of a ‘my target audience’ . After halving that number I am now left with 124,55 statistical males that I would like to consider to be my potential buyers.

Geographic
Where are your customers located? While technology has made location less of an issue for many companies, it doesn’t mean you should overlook the importance of defining the geographic location of your customers. My shop will be located on Tottenham High Road N17 so the Geographical location of my customers would be in North London (Enfield en3) (Edmonton N9/ N18) (Tottenham N17 /N15).

Business chosen: clothing shop
Ownership: Sole trader
Advantages
1. There are a few legal restrictions on forming such a business
2. It allows you to offer a personal service to your customers.
3. Decision-making and implementation of change is fast
4. Profits don’t need to be shared
5. Financial information is kept private

Dis-advantages
1. Growth is limited to the amount of capital I can raise
2. I will have unlimited liability to the debts of my business
3. Working hours are often long
4. I may lack some important skills needed to make the business succeed.

a. Who is your target audience?
My target audience is any male of any ethnicity