Your marketing plan must define those customers who are most critical to your success—your primary markets.

Many businesses sell to more than one kind of market, of course, and diversifying may help you bring in more business. But focus your initial efforts on customers who will bring you the greatest reward. You can always emphasize secondary markets after you succeed in capturing a significant share of your primary market.

Study the questions below and find the answers (see “Research Key Markets”). Then describe in your plan the top two or three markets you want to penetrate.

Think about the demographics of the customers you most want to attract: their age, sex, income, educational level, employment status, ethnic background, home-ownership pattern and so on. Where do they live? How much do they have to spend? Do you know the makeup of your current customer base?

If your business sells primarily locally, which areas of town are the best sources of your target customers? Which are easiest for customers to get to? Which are considered trendy and upscale? Which are going downhill?

As you investigate your markets, take advantage of secondary research—data that’s already been compiled. You may also want to conduct some primary research of your own. Check out the next article in this seminar, “Research Key Markets,” for concrete suggestions on getting started.