If you map out your target market, it looks like a target. (Duh, it’s in the name, right?) There is a bull’s eye at the center and surrounding rings that encircle it.
Somehow I’d never visualized a target market as an actual target until I read Jason Cohen’s brilliant article Selling to Carol: Why targeting an ICP brings 10x more customers than you expected. Jason explains that the bull’s eye is your ideal, specific, particular customer. The people that comprise the rings surrounding the bull’s eye share many or most of the same attributes as your ideal customer, but not all.
In a fashion brand, you want to design for, fit to, and market to the person in the center of the bull’s eye. Note that the bull’s eye is very small.
If you aim for the bull’s eye and miss, you will still probably end up hitting the target! If you lose focus on the bull’s eye, you’ll end up missing the mark altogether.
Do you know who the bull’s eye of your target market is?
And – the bigger question that Jason brings up in his article – when your bull’s eye customer encounter’s your brand, do they know they are the ideal fit?