Writing a buffer overflow exploit - security

Question

I understand there are quite a few tutorials on how to write a buffer overflow, but still can't write my own.
The following is the C code I want to hack:
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
static int x = 8;
void prompt(){
char buf[100];
gets(buf);
printf("You entered: %s\n", buf);
}
int main(){
prompt();
return 0;
}
void target(){
printf("Haha! I made it!\n");
exit(0);
}
My goal is to execute the target () function via a buffer overflow exploit.
Through trial and error, I've discovered the minimum number of characters required to obtain a segmentation fault is 108. (Therefore 107 characters does NOT cause seg fault)
I've disassembled the binary, and found the target executable to be at address 0x08048e7f
I've flipped the byte order to compensate for endian-ness. --> 0x7f8e0408
I then converted that hexadecimal to a binary, then to ASCII, obtaining: & # 3 8 1 ; (ignore spaces, stackoverflow doesn't properly show it originally)
Afterwards, I inserted the first 107 characters, and then Ž
Thus, my attack string is: iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiŽ
This still gives me a segmentation fault.
I've compiled like so:
gcc ./vuln_program.c -fno-stack-protector -z execstack -static -o vuln_program
and have disabled protections beforehand like so:
sudo sysctl -w kernel.randomize_va_space=0
I am using a 32 bit Ubuntu virtual machine.
Any ideas?
Thank you.
EDIT:
I just realized that my output on this site is being read as weird characters.
If you see a weird Z, it really is 1) & 2) # 3) 3 4)8 5) 1 6) ; in that exact order