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Business & Management

A research guide for topics in business and management.

Find Target Market Data

Overview

In a “Target Market Analysis,” you are building a target market profile to determine how to best reach your potential customers. Basically, you conduct a target market analysis to determine who you will be marketing your product, business, or service to--this may be individual consumers or other businesses or industries. Creating a target market profile can help you decide where your business or client’s marketing money is best spent.  

For a target market analysis, you’ll want to identify the following: 

  • Geographic limits of your market
    • Where are your customers located?
  • Customer Demographics
    • Gender 
    • Annual Income
    • Age
  • Customer Characteristics
    • Attitudes
    • Values
    • Lifestyles

Target market profiles are built by collecting recent and relevant data. In order to find this information, you will need to collect and compare data from a wide variety of sources like the ones listed below.  

Important Note

When conducting a Target Market Analysis, you may not find the explicit data you seek. Rather, be prepared to combine and create data by extrapolating, inferring, estimating, and making judgments based on related and relevant information. Generate logical informed estimates of statistics, demographics and financial projections based on pertinent research. 

You may find market reports for sale on the Internet. You are not expected to purchase reports for any assignments. Rely on internet research, data from CityU Library databases, or local libraries. If you have spent 15-20 minutes searching with no success, reach out to a librarian for help.

Industry and Company Reports

Industry Reports

Industry reports are a good place to start your target market research, as they will often detail the major markets that drive the industry---otherwise known as your main customers! Learn about how to find industry reports here:

Company Reports

If you are working with an existing, publicly traded company, looking at company reports can also be useful. Many company reports will include details about customers. You can find information on finding company reports here:

Professional Associations

Regional, state, or national professional associations can be great sources for finding target market information.  

  • Search the Internet to discover credible, respected, and stable industry or product associations or organizations. 
  • Determine the quality and relevance of the association’s site to your market. For example: Who sponsors the site? How current is the site? Are there links to other reliable organizations? 
  • Search for reports, surveys, fact sheets and statistics regarding marketing or consumer profiles. 

You can locate industry association websites by running an advanced Google search using the following format: industry description + association. You can also add site:.org to your search to ensure that you only return results that have a .org domain. 

Example search: site:.org brewery + association 

Government Statistics

United States

Government websites are great for finding data. You can locate US city, county, state, federal, industry, economic, or health data by searching the following sites:

You can also add site:.gov to an internet search to pull results specific to that domain. For example:

site:.gov + "fast food" + Washington

Canada

The Canadian equivalent of ".gov" is ".gc.ca". Here are some recommended sites:

Other Geographic Areas

For all other countries or regions, please see:

Other Consumer Statistics

In addition to government sites, you can find consumer statistics in the following areas. These platforms are also great for digging deeper into customer characteristics. 

You can also search our databases or the Internet using combinations of terms such as: 

  • [your product] + consumers + Seattle 
  • trends + [your product] + King County 
  • [your product or industry] + lifestyle 

Trade Magazines or Journals

Search the following databases to locate magazine and journals covering your topic or industry.

Search the Internet for magazines, newsletters, or journals published by associations or organizations on your product or industry, or for recent blogs or articles on your topics. Be persistent and try a variety of combinations of search terms. Enter phrases for the exact data you want, such as: 

  • who buys + [your product]
  • cost + [your product]
  • trends + [your product]