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 that you plan on specifically marketing your product to. As such, understanding your target audience is integral to business expansion, longevity and the overall success of your product invention.

It goes without saying that during the brainstorming and planning stages, inventors go through when creating their idea of their product or invention, they wonder how successful their product will turn out and have high hopes that it will reach mass commercial success. One thing many forget is to consider how much they know about this ‘mass’ and whether it is really the target they should be trying to hit.

Below are a few points to take into consideration when conceptualizing your product to ensure you have an advanced understanding of your target audience and can effectively 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 through a subjective lens. Consider the following:

• Does this problem that 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 while trying to balance work productivity and spending time with your children, maybe your product will be geared towards the audience of parents and kids. If your problem occurs while playing sports or being engaged in physical activity, then your product or invention will likely be received best by the health and fitness audience.

No matter which audience your product inevitably falls into, understanding your target audience will give you deeper insight into how to market and strategically design your product.

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 up 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 begin the process of ideation, you’ve already earned the title of an inventor with a ‘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 it to the future of where you want your product to end up.

For example, let’s say you initially create a product that will resonate best with 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 audience will help you take your product and integrate it into their hobbies and lifestyle.

If you discover that your product doesn’t align with your audience’s hobbies, then you’ve identified how your product can improve and grow. This is good! Now, you can create a vision of not only the future of your product within its market or business and decide the next steps to take in your product design and development process.

Market/Competition

As inventors, it is always important to note that while 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! Devote a good portion of your day to researching your idea.

Find out what is already out there and what exists already. From there, you 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 also what that audience more likely uses.

Taking the time to understand and figure out these important facts about your product idea and invention will give you valuable information about your competition, as well as current business models and trends present within the market you’ll be entering. It will also give you a more solid and concrete idea of how your product idea will fit into or address your target audience’s current needs.

From there, you can find not only what is missing from what your audience currently has and needs but also improve and see ways in which your current idea can transform and develop. Understanding your competition will 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 to enter the market.

If you have a great new invention and you’d like to learn more about this process, get in touch with MAKO today, and we can set you up on a call with our product strategist.

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!