Understanding Your Target Audiences

In the product development process, one of the biggest factors to take in and understand, especially when you’re designing your idea or invention, is your target audience. Your target audience is the audience of who you plan on specifically marketing your product to. Understanding your target audience is one of the most important aspects in the business, longevity and success of your product idea of invention. It is without saying that during the brain storming and thought process that most inventors have when creating their idea of their product or invention in mind, they wonder how successful their product will turn out, and have high hopes that their product will reach mass commercial success, however, how much do you know about this ‘mass’ and is it really the target you’ll want to hit? Below are a few points to take into consideration when imagining and thinking about how understanding your target audience and can predict the future reception of your product.

Problem:

Everyone’s idea starts out with a problem. If you’ve never encountered a problem, then you wouldn’t have an idea for an invention to begin with. Take a step back and try to envision your problem out of a subjective lens. Does this problem in which your invention idea will solve happen occasionally? Is this a problem that occurs for many people? Did this problem occur because of a specific circumstance or because you were engaged in a certain activity? Asking yourself these questions can bring into scope a certain area in which your product invention will fall into. For example, if you encounter a problem whilst trying to manage productive and time with your children, maybe your product will be geared towards the parents ands kids’ audience. If your problem occurs whilst playing sports or being engaged in physical activity, then your product or invention will fall into the fitness or athlete audience. No matter which audience your product inevitably will fall into, understanding your target audience will give you a deeper insight as to how to market and strategically prepare or design your idea for the audience it is likely to be most profitable to.

Your vision:

The idea behind ‘the vision’ of an inventor’s product is essential. Many times, when observing successful inventors and creators, they usually come with a motivational quote or story that begins with this idea of their ‘vision’. Being successful isn’t a prerequisite for having a ‘vision’! As a matter of fact, the second you immerse yourself into the field of creation and invention, you’ve already given yourself the title of having that ‘vision.’ But how does having that vision relate to your audience? Simple. Once you know the vision you have for your product, you’ll be able to apply to it the future of where you want your product to end up. For example, let’s say you initially create a product that will be most profitable to the tech audience, from there using your vision, you can investigate the future of both where your audience will go and how your product will grow with them. Naturally, everyone has different interests and hobbies, so understanding your target audiences will help you take your product and integrate within their hobbies and lifestyle. If you figure that your product wont work with your audiences’ hobbies, then you’ve found an open area as to which your product can improve and grow. And thus, you create a future vision to not only the future of your product within its market or business, but also the future of your products design and development.

Market/Competition:

As inventors, it is always important that whilsts understanding your target audience and thinking of your product idea, you should take the time to also examine what is out in the market already! Take a good portion of your day researching your idea. Find out what is already out there and what exists already. From there, you’d like to examine products, inventions and ideas that are similar to the idea that you already have and see where they fit, not only in the market (in terms of their success and history), but as well as what that audience more likely uses. Taking the time to understand and figure out these important facts about your products idea and invention not only gives you valuable information about your competition and current business models and trends relevant to the market you’ll be entering, but also gives you a more solid and concrete idea about imagining how your product idea will fit or work into your target audiences current needs. From this you can find not only what is missing from what your audience currently has and needs, but also can improve and see ways in which your current idea can transform and develop. Understanding your competition can also give you a good idea about the best and worst ways in which you can market or sell your product once it is ready for entering the market.

If you have a great new invention and you’d like to learn more about this process, get in touch with MAKO here and visit our website to find out more. Feel free to give us a call at 1-888-MAKO and we can set you up on a call with our product analyst

About: MAKO Design + Invent is the original firm providing world-class consumer product development services tailored to startups, small manufacturers, and inventors. Simply put, we are the leading one-stop-shop for developing your physical product from idea to store shelves, all in a high-quality, cost-effective, and timely manner. We operate as one powerhouse 30-person product design team spread across 4 offices to serve you (Austin, Miami, San Francisco, & Toronto). We have full-stack in-house industrial design, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, patent referral, prototyping, and manufacturing services. To assist our startup and inventor clients, in addition to above, we help with business strategy, product strategy, marketing, and sales/distribution for all consumer product categories. Also, our founder Kevin Mako hosts The Product Startup Podcast, the industry's leading hardware podcast. Check it out for tips, interviews, and best practices for hardware startups, inventors, and product developers. Click HERE to learn more about MAKO Design + Invent!