Difference Between a Target & Niche Market

Understanding your target and niche markets could be the key to growing your business.

As a business owner, it's important to have an understanding of your consumers. That means having a good grasp of the characteristics of your key customers and how they respond to your marketing messages.

Target Market

Your target market represents the core group of consumers for whom your business works to create products and services. Your marketing and promotional efforts should be tailored to reach these individuals in media that they frequent, whether it's via television, the web, print, radio or mobile advertising.

Example of a Target Market

Your target market can be identified by their sex, age, income, marital status, educational level, whether they rent or buy their homes and even by their professions.

Niche Market

A niche market goes beyond simply targeting someone by age or income; it breaks its market into smaller segments, identifying a group of people by very specific identifying characteristics. And as a business owner, you take this small segment and market to it.

Example of a Niche Market

An example of a niche market is women over the age of 60 who have a median household income of $65,000 and like to give baskets as gifts to their family and friends.

How Target Markets and Niche Markets Work Together

Once you've identified your core target market and developed strategies for marketing to it, you can dig deeper and further segment your market to reach a core audience that has a specific set of needs you think you can reach with products and services tailored to meet those needs.

References

• "Handbook of Niche Marketing: Principles and Practice;" Tevfik Dalgic; 2006
• Enterpreneur.com: Niche Marketing
• Enterpreneur.com: Target Market

Resources

• NetMBA.com: Target Market Selection
• AllBusiness.com: How to Identify and Reach Niche Markets for Your Business
• NewMediaStrategies.net: Why Women Are the Target Market, Not Just the Niche Market