Every once in a while I discover a REALLY BASIC point I’ve never blogged on.
Here’s one.
YOU CAN’T MARKET IF YOU DON’T KNOW WHO YOU ARE TRYING TO REACH.
In case this is not completely obvious, let me give you an exaggerated instance. If you don’t know what country you are marketing to, how will you know what language your copy should be in? You end up with an advertisement in Russian running in a French magazine.
How can you decide what a marketing item should look like, what you should say, even what venue to use to get your message out, if you haven’t determined who your target market is?
You can’t.
Now when I say you need to know who your target market is, that starts with demographics:

Podiatrists located in major metropolitan areas
Teenage girls from middle-income families
Napoleon Dynamite fans
Businesses with 100-2000 offices in the U.S.

That’s far from the end of it: What are their likes and dislikes? What do they read? What kinds of searches do they do online? Who do they trust?
If you can’t answer those kinds of questions, some market research is in order.
But the first question that has to be answered is: WHO are you trying to reach and influence to buy your product or service.