You can write as much content, make as many videos and tell as many stories of success as you like – but who is really listening? This week, we’re talking about target markets – and why knowing them could make or break your business.
Whether you’re aware of it or not, you have a target market.
Before you make any hasty decisions with how to market your business, and even
how to run your business, you should first consider them – because without a
market, you have no business.
Why are they so important, you ask?
They are your customers and future customers so they should
likely be a rather big priority in your business. Whether you work with repeat
business a lot from the same clients, or only sell to them one time, it’s important
to know who they are and what makes them tick so you can work out how to
continue to sell to them, and more importantly, how to get even more of them!
Why aren’t they listening?
The reason why so much content (on the internet especially) fails
to draw anyone in is because it’s not targeted well enough. If you spend a long
time writing up your price list and clauses, when all your customers care about
is the quality of your product, you’ve wasted your time and more importantly –
lost out on potential customers.
So, where do I start?
Firstly, if you already have customers, you already have a
target market. Even if you have not yet considered them, they are out there.
There’s a couple of questions you’ll need to consider: “Who are they now?” and “Who
do you want more of?”
Finding out who they are now will give you the chance to
review where they came to you from and what you like (and possibly dislike!)
about them as a customer. For example, if you have a trend of customers who buy
very small value items from you, that take up a lot of your time and often
leave negative reviews on your website later, you should review them and see what
they have in common so you can attempt to reduce the number of these customers.
Look for any trends at all that are common between these customers – it could
be anything from how they found you to what kind of car they drive. If you find
a common theme, it could be time to avoid targeting this market in the future.
Likewise, if you find customers that you love, that buy high value items and
leave you lots of good reviews, you should look at them and review trends that
they may have too – maybe they all are commonly looking for quality over price,
or simply find the story of your company really intriguing and buy into it.
Whatever the common trends are, take note of them because
they are vital to moulding your new marketing strategies and possibly even your
business processes.
How to mould what you’re saying to match your target market
Okay, so you have your target market. Now how do you start
speaking to them in a way that will make them sit up and listen? And more importantly
– buy from you! Here are a few of our top tips for moulding your content,
whether it’s writing a post on facebook or writing up your pricelist, you should
bear in mind the following:
What is your role in the relationship?
Think what role you ideally want to be seen as in your
relationship with your customer – do they play the role of student and you as teacher?
Or maybe they play the role of boss and you as employee?
Once you know this relationship role you wish to play, you can start ensuring your content matches this vibe – if you’re a teacher, maybe you wish to make sure your content comes across as knowledgeable and inspiring, with a level of respect implied. Or maybe if you see your business as being the employee, maybe you wish to come across as very loyal and helpful and ‘on the same team’?
Create a persona for your ideal target market
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| Maybe one of this line up will be your new target market persona? 'Builder Man in Hat' certainly looks keen. |
When you create your content you should keep your target
market at the forefront of your mind – but that can be tricky if you’re imagining
a number of real customers or worse, can’t imagine anyone at all!
It’s helpful to create a ‘persona’ that represents your
target market (or multiple personas if you have more than one type you want to
focus on). This simply means you create a fictional character that has all of
the qualities you want to see in your target market. Write down all of the
qualities and trends you want to see, and envisage a single person who has them
all. Give them a name, a job, a personal life – even write details of what kind
of clothes they wear, where they shop, where they socialise, where they
holiday.
Then gear your content directly to that person and speak
directly to them – speak to them in a way that you might in person to sell them
your products or services.
Talk their language
If you’ve met them and spoken with your target customer
type, think about the way they speak and the way you want to come across. It
can be really helpful to imagine the conversation in person.
If you’re really struggling to know where to begin, you
could try finding out what kind of content they currently enjoy – maybe even
stalk their Facebook page (if they have one) and see what kind of things they’ve
liked? If there’s any particular magazines or newspapers’ they read, or
websites they follow, you can take a good guess that they enjoy the way that
content is written and look there for inspiration.
It’s also important to consider the role you wish your
business to be viewed in. If you want your chosen role is to be a friend for
example, think about how you might talk to them as a friend? You probably
wouldn’t want it to be very formal and may even want to use casual English,
rather than writing things that only a lawyer would want to read (unless, of
course, you are targeting lawyers!).
Don’t be afraid to make mistakes
No one really gets anything perfectly spot on the first time
they do it – and talking to your target market is no different. Try things out,
post different types of articles, different videos, and on different platforms
and measure what comes back. The most important thing is to get going and try
something – just remember to review what’s been done later and work harder at
the things that worked, and maybe ditch the things that didn’t.
Whatever you do, don’t throw in the towel if millions aren’t
instantly swarming at your video or article – there may be viral videos out
there, 1 hit wonders – but not many out there were a business’s first try at
it.
Do you have any tips
for how you found your target market? Or maybe you have tried one of our
methods? We’d love to hear about it, please leave us a comment below.
Can you guess what
our role is!?
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