The Market is not Always the Target

This is a very little understood strategic principle.

Say, your strategy is to focus on a specific kind of products that may be targeted at specific group. Your customers will not always be comprised of the target audience and sometimes never.

If the above example just confused you, think of diapers. I still have to see any baby insisting on a given brand (if he or she does, he or she is too old to be wearing them!).

In the diapers, the market is babies and the target parents and anyone purchasing them.

Note: I picked this example as it’s a baby boom in my circle of friends and business associates.