Target Audiences

Finding a target audience is essential for all buisnesses. By knowing who will buy your product the most, you can easily narrow down advertising to select locations to reach the largest audience which will save money. How does one determine a target audience? One must consider:

• Age
• Gender
• Education level
• Income
• Does the product satisfy a hedonic or utilitarian need?

SRI's VALS classifies consumers into eight lifestyle segments which helps determine the consumer's buying habits. Upon completion of the VALS survey, I read that I am an "innovator" primarily and an "experiencer" secondarily. This did not mean very much to me so after reading further into the framework I am surprised to discover that they are fairly on target.

My group on Tuesday determined the profile of a Club Libby Lu customer to be a young girl between the ages of 6-10 who enjoys listening to pre-teen tunes on Hannah Montana and the Jonas Brothers. She also enjoys shopping at Limited Too and Claire's. Her mother, undoubtedly the woman who drives her to Club Libby Lu and pays for the merchandise is most likely a stay at home mom who drives a Lexus SUV and enjoys regularly taking her husband's Mastercard for a spin at Nieman Marcus.

I believe such customers would be placed in the Experiencer category. The mother most likely will splurge on every fashion trend to keep her daughter at the top of the fourth grade social hierarchy, which means spending too much income for social purposes.