Entrepreneurship · Lesson Plan

Knowing Your Target Market

You can’t sell to everyone — so smart businesses focus on a target market, the specific group of people most likely to want their product. This lesson teaches students to identify a target market (you wouldn’t sell skateboards to retirees) and to match products and services to the customers they fit. Knowing the target market makes every later marketing decision easier.

Grades 4–8 Lesson Plan 30–45 minutes Free Lesson Plan Lesson & Activity: Full Membership

Knowing your target market lesson illustration

For Teachers

Lesson at a glance

Topic: Entrepreneurship
Grade Level: Grades 4–8
Resource Type: Lesson + Worksheet
Estimated Time: 30–45 minutes
Format: Lesson + activity
Materials: Printable lesson, activity sheet, whiteboard

What Students Learn

Learning objectives

Define a target market
Explain why a business can’t sell to everyone
Match products and services to likely customers
Recognize that products can have more than one target market
Use the target market to guide marketing decisions

Materials

What you’ll need

Printed lesson and activity sheet (one per student)
Pencils
Whiteboard

Key Terms

Vocabulary

Market: The people expected to buy a product or pay for a service.
Target market: The specific group a business wants to sell to.
Needs and wants: What customers must have versus what they’d like.
Marketing strategy: The plan for how to sell to the target market.
Demographics: Characteristics of a group, like age or location.
Customer: A person who buys a product or service.

For Teachers

Lesson plan

Estimated time: one 30–45 minute class period.

Lesson sequence

Who buys? (10 min). Use the school example — different people have different needs; you can’t serve them all.
Target market (10 min). Define target market with the skateboard example.
Matching activity (15 min). Students match products and services to target markets, noting that some have several.
Apply (8 min). Students name the target market for a product they might sell.

Assessment

Assess the matching activity for sensible product-to-market pairings and reasoning.

Discussion

Discussion questions

What is a target market?
Why can’t a business sell to everyone?
Who would be the target market for skateboards? For denture cream?
Can a product have more than one target market?
Who is the target market for something you might sell?

Printable Lesson & Activity