“Who are my consumers? Why are they buying my vegan/ plant-based products? How do I identify the Target Group (TG) that I can scale?”
Have these questions ever popped into your mind, my friend?
Defining the TG is the first step in framing a differentiated positioning for any brand. If you don’t know who you are talking to, how will you craft what you want to say to them, where to find and communicate with them?
Let me share some simple yet effective tips to identify the most suitable TG for your vegan product. These have worked well for me and my marketing clients over the years. So worry not, ye vegan soldier, march ahead bravely! (Nah….didn’t work, did it? I think motivational slogan saying is not really my talent. Ah…well!)
Before we proceed, a quick clarification:
TG or Target Audience are the people you want to communicate with or the group you want to serve. Niche is the service or product you specialize in. E.g. Your TG could be mothers. Your niche could be making packaged vegan school lunch boxes. Tips for identifying your niche are shared in this issue of Vegan Marketing Love Letters.
Now, back to the TG identifying tips…
1. Check the TG Matrix
Vegan and plant-based products have multiple customer segments to choose from. Here’s a handy list.
You can use The TG Matrix in 3 ways:
a. Start off by targeting an entire row of the matrix as your TG/ target audience. E.g. Speak to all people motivated by animal rights. Then, once you have more sales data, trends and social media engagement, you could narrow down to a specific TG with whom your message resonates the most. E.g. Those who follow veganism purely for the sake of animals.
b. Start off with a single cell of the matrix. One that has the highest potential of responding to your brand messages. E.g. A fashionista who uses only vegan makeup brands but still eats non-vegetarian food. Once you become the go-to vegan brand for that focused TG, then go communicate with another one. So on and so forth.
c. Focus only on the Vegan column (but that might reduce your Total Addressable Market)
2. How to pick the right TG to scale
a. If you have a competitor
If your product already has a competitor in the market, study them. Whoever is buying from them could very well buy from you too. Brush up your sleuthing skills and dig in:
- If your competitor has a website, use similarweb.com for preliminary audience research. Go check it out. Its one of my go-tos to start with.
- See the media your competitor heavily uses. E.g. if they advertise a lot in magazines, figure out the reader profile of those magazines.
- Check out the comments on the competitor’s popular posts. What is the commonality between the commentors?
- My personal and recent favorite: Sparktoro! Go check it out. You will be able to research your audience and how! Trust me, you will love it 🙂
- Deep dive into ads run by competitors. Look for patterns. E.g. all images in their ads show a young working woman or most ad headlines speak to gym goers. These patterns could help you identify the TG that competitor is talking to.
- If your category is sold offline, spend time at relevant outlets. See what kind of people are showing interest in or buying competitor products. If you get a chance, try speaking with some of them.
b. If you are first in the market
- Based on your product features/ benefits, hypothesize who is likely to want/ like/ need your product
- Do a small pilot to reach that hypothesized buyer
- As soon as you get even a few customers, speak with them. Also speak to those who inquire but don’t buy.
- Through these conversations, try to unearth what made them either buy or not buy your product (as the case maybe). It’s also necessary to find out what will tempt them to buy in the future.
- These conversations will help you identify and clearly define the right TG for you.
- Analyze your social media pages to see who is interacting with your brand
These were some simple, actionable tips. Give them a try and let me know how they worked.
Question to think about: 💡
Should you cater to one specific TG by offering multiple products or should you sell your single product to multiple TG?
I am just an email away, should you want to talk. You know that, right?
