When I ask someone about their target audience or client the first reaction is usually a blank stare. Or they might answer “anyone 18-80!” in an enthusiastic bright tone.
Unfortunately trying to market to “anyone 18-80″ is nearly impossible. You really have to understand the true sweet spot within your client base, particularly if you’re starting on a content marketing campaign. What I’ve found is that with a little digging, most business owners really do know their client base pretty well. But they don’t want to miss anyone who actually might buy something so they say “everyone”. This is faulty logic because we can’t market effectively to “everyone.”
Here are five way to help you identify your own client “sweet spot” without leaving anyone out:
Think about what your target client/buyer/audience does rather than who they are. We tend to focus on age, gender, occupation and other demographics. What’s more important may be the types of characteristics your customers and prospective customers display. What are their beliefs, desires, habits? Where do they most likely live, close by or can they be oceans away? This knowledge can help you determine the focus for many things, from SEO to finding influencers to recommend your business.
Try to determine why your client/buyer/audience is interested in you. What problem do you solve for these people? Why would they be interested in your product or service? If you consider this, you’ll likely come up with some common themes. Perhaps you are a plastic surgeon and you see a lot of recently divorced women, or women who have just turned 50. Or maybe you’re selling temporary tattoos and you get quite busy at prom season.
Figure out how they buy. Do most people stop in a store and buy your product or do they think about the purchase before buying? How many times do you talk to a customer before they buy? Do they respond to sales and buy more, or is the price not as important? This helps determine who your real buyers are, not the ones who just shop around or worse, the ones who take all your time and never buy anything.
Find out how they found out about you. Is it typically through word of mouth or do most find you online? If you don’t know, just ask the next few customers you encounter. You might find that there are brand ambassadors working for you and you don’t even know about it.
Remember the last five great sales you made. Not the last five sales, but the last GREAT ones. We all have those deals, or customers that we remember with fondness. Describe what happened in a scenario and describe the customer as well. How old were they, what did they look like? Did they seem educated? This may be the best foundation for a client “persona” which we’ll talk about in the next post.
All of these things help define your target audience and client. You can answer everything on this list I’m sure. And those answers will be golden..they’re the clues that help lead you to a great marketing strategy.
