TARGET MARKETING

Target Marketing

Target Marketing

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.

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 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 ...