Finding Your Target Market: Where Customers Come From

Do You Know Where Your Customers Will Come From?

Jenny set up her new design business. She had the latest technology and a top-of-the-line office. She was excited to finally own and run her own business.

After a few days of getting settled, Jenny realized something. She had spent the past month getting the business ready, but she had never worked out how she would actually get customers.

This is a common mistake. This article walks small business owners through how to define their target market and figure out where customers will actually come from.

Without Customers, You Don’t Have a Business

This is one of the main things to work out before you start a business. Once you have customers, the next job is keeping them happy.

AI isn't optional anymore. Start with one small step.

More customers means more chances to succeed. It also gives you more room to test offers, get feedback, and adjust your business over time. One customer gives you one shot. A thousand customers give you a thousand chances to learn what works.

To attract customers, you first need to know who they are. If you don’t know anything about them, you can’t market to them effectively.

To find your target market, start by asking the right questions. The answers will tell you who your target market actually is.

If your business is already running, start with what you have. Look through your sales records, your CRM, or your social media data. Patterns in age, location, and buying habits often show up there before you even ask a single question.

Here are some sample questions to ask yourself to help define your target market.

How old are your customers?
What do they have in common?
What do they like to do?
What makes them happy?
Where do they spend their leisure time?
What do they do for fun?
What upsets them?
What is their greatest desire?
What is their greatest fear?
What level of income do they have?
What level of education do they have?
What is their most pressing problem? (Hint: if you can determine this and solve it easily, your whole business can revolve around this issue.)

Some of these questions may feel too personal to answer with confidence. That’s fine. The more you learn about your customers, the better you can serve them.

For example, if you know what your customers like, dislike, and fear, you can shape your business around solving those problems. You don’t need every answer right away. Work with what you have and build from there.

How Will You Contact Your Customers?

Once you know something about your customers, the next step is reaching them. Here are some things to consider:

Where is the best place to find them?
How can you reach many of them at the same time?
Will you use newspaper ads, radio, TV, word of mouth, a grand opening, or a professional marketing agency?
Will you make contact face to face, or through phone, internet, mail, TV, radio, or print advertising?

Don’t overlook referrals. In 2026, small business owners named word of mouth as their single best source of new customers, well ahead of any other channel, according to LocaliQ’s marketing trends report. Digital advertising still plays a role too, so it’s worth keeping both in your mix rather than picking one over the other.

Knowing who your target market is, a bit about them, and the best way to reach them puts you ahead of most people starting a business. Startup failures often trace back to the opposite problem: in a 2024 CB Insights analysis of startup post-mortems, nearly half pointed to a poor fit between what they built and what the market actually wanted.

Takeaways

Building a strong relationship with your customers takes time. Testing and tracking are ongoing work, not a one-time task.

If you can answer most of the questions above, you’re off to a strong start.

Key Points and Facts About Finding Your Customers

Why This Matters

A business without customers isn’t a business — customer discovery has to happen before or alongside setup, not after.
In a 2024 CB Insights study of startup failures, poor product-market fit was the most common cause, cited in close to half the cases reviewed.

How to Get Started

If you already have customers, check your sales records, CRM, or social media data for patterns first.
As of 2026, small business owners rank referrals above every other channel for landing new customers, with digital advertising close behind.

Action Steps for Finding Your Customers

Define Your Target Market

Work through the target market questions above, answering as many as you can.
Pull existing sales or CRM data if your business is already running.
Write down the two or three traits your ideal customers share.

Choose How You’ll Reach Them

List every channel available to you — referrals, social media, local advertising, and paid ads.
Prioritize referrals and word of mouth, since owners rank them as the most effective source of new customers.
Pick two or three channels to focus on rather than spreading effort across all of them.

Checklist for Finding Your Customers

Answer the target market questions
- Age, income, education, interests, fears, and biggest problem
Review existing customer data (if you have any)
- Sales records, CRM entries, social media followers
Pick your contact channels
- Referrals, social media, advertising, or direct outreach
Set a way to track what’s working
- Note where each new customer came from

FAQ: Finding Your Target Market

What if I don’t have any customers yet?

Start with the target market questions and build a picture of your ideal customer before you launch. You can adjust it once real customers start coming in.

How many target market traits should I define?

Two or three clear, shared traits are usually enough to shape your marketing. Trying to cover too many traits makes your marketing message too broad to be effective.

Is word of mouth really more effective than advertising?

As of 2026, small business owners rank referrals as their top source of new customers, ahead of digital advertising. That doesn’t mean advertising doesn’t work — many businesses use both together.

References:

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