Gathering information about your target market is very important to assess their needs and wants. However, you should also know what information is vital in order to serve them better. Below are some things you need to find out before it’s too late:

• Demographics and Location. While you have a target market in mind, your actual customers might be different from who you intended to target in the beginning. Information includes sex, age, location, and income bracket. Compare it with your profile and probe deeper to know the underlying reasons.
• Buying motivation. Discovering what motivates prospective (and existing) customers to buy from you is crucial to finding the right customer. In most cases, customers are either buying your products to solve a problem, or to prevent a problem from happening. This is very important information that will help you create good advertising campaigns.
• Product Usage. Are they using your product aside from what it’s supposed to do? For instance, the mouthwash Listerine is also proven effective for cleaning foot problems like toenail fungus. You might be missing a lucrative segment if you don’t point and market alternate uses of your products.