Week 4 Part B: Defining My Target Market

 

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    Hello again, readers! Today’s mission is to define a target audience for my imaginary company, .rEvolution. Thanks for joining me through the process!

    .rEvolution delivers internet and software services via the cloud. Your subscription gets you internet and/or invisibility, anywhere. The subscription is attached to you, not a device. And you’ll only pay for what you use. Like any good cloud service, it’s easy to rapidly adapt to your needs.

    Identifying my target market will be something I’ll have to roll out in stages. My services will first be targeted to professional technologists who like to try new virtual solutions. I can passively advertise and get boosts by offering limited trials to technology industry professionals; their peer review confirms my product’s validity and spreads the word for .rEvolution. Our real feel is liberation. At consumer level, we’re marketing to people who currently pay internet and cell service providers fixed fees for limited devices – which is everyone who’s paying a phone and internet bill. 

    My main consumer demographic is the internet and cell bill-payer. In the U.S., 82.7% of American households had a broadband internet connection (https://www.census.gov.) According to Pew Research Center, 97% of Americans own a cell phone (www.pewresearch.org.) Tech industry professionals are my other group. According to the Bureau of Labor and Statistics, over 2.4 million Americans work in the Computer and Information Technology fields (www.bls.gov.)

    While the tech professional demographic is purposefully manageable and small, the consumer side loses definition in its sheer mass. These are huge proportions of the population; 82% of 330 million people…is time for a calculator. But I’m not looking for just anyone in each of those households. For instance, toddlers are great but they don’t make decisions about which brands to buy for safety and internet. I’m only looking for the people who pay phone / internet bills; and although that number is not readily available, it is very likely a much smaller number (demographic) than whatever your calculator said.

    The attitudes and preferences that drive purchases also play an important role in identifying a target group. .rEvolution establishes trust quickly and effectively, and seeks to maintain that trust in an ongoing relationship of customer satisfaction. One psychographic to market to are people who take their privacy seriously, and who feel encroached upon by data miners whose presence is made legal by acceptance of a EULA. Another would be people who feel less than content with having to have different internet and cell providers, having to pay for services not rendered (e.g., data and services paid for but not used.) Also, another psychographic is tech people who want to centralize the way internet access and privacy works.

    In order to split the number of viable consumer groups into manageable groups, I can use surveys or purchase analyses to try cluster them around similar interests. This allows me to look at their attributes: are they buying for best price, quality, brand loyalty, discount, convenience…? Each sector will need to be marketed to in their own way. The tech demographic has the behavioristic elements built-in – this is what interests us, the ever-evolving iterations and solutions that technologies offer.

    Sounds like I’ve got quite a task ahead of me, readers. At least it’s not a real company – yet.