Developing your target market – Part 1

I’m kind of a big deal

In a previous blog, we discussed a bit about positioning yourself as an authority on your website. Giving people the impression that you are a big deal, and you are good at what you do. There are limits to how you do that, and if you go too far you will come across as slimy and combative to those who are seriously interested in giving you money. Your hope is to impress people and let them figure out on their own that you are a big deal. That’s not to say that you can’t ask other people to help you in this department, however.

With this in mind we are going to focus on two areas:

1. Your target markets social media platform of choice
2. Directory listings.

Developing Your Target Market

In this section, I am not going to teach you how to game social media to benefit from search engines. That is not the way I believe you will win in the long run. I am however going to share with you my thoughts on how to market directly to your customers and get the benefits of social media in search engines at the same time.

Since we are going to do it the right way, it requires a little planning in the beginning. So for today, we are going to focus on finding your avatar.

Avatar, you mean like the movie?

No, I mean your ideal customer. An Avatar is an iconic representation of whom you would like to sell your product to above everyone else. I know you might be inclined to say everyone, but I have learned that if you are MARKETING to everyone you are selling to no one.

Red Bull And Their Marketing Genius

Take a look at Redbull for a minute interacting with their clients on Facebook. No seriously go take a look!

Did you notice they have 44 MILLION fans? Did you also notice that they are clearly marketing to a particular audience? What age & interests do you think they are targeting? If you guessed 20-35-year-olds who are into extreme sports then you are right! Now, let me ask another question. Of those 39 million fans, do you think all of them fit that market? Of course, they don’t, but defining who they are talking to, has allowed them to get traction.

Benefits Not Features

I also would like you to notice that they talk about their products very little, on social media. They talk about the larger picture of what they would like to associate their brand with and its benefits. It doesn’t matter if YOU believe that Redbull gives you wings or not, in the eyes of the many that follow them closely, it gives them energy if they drink it. I want to be clear about associations and outright lying here. There is a right way and a wrong way to do this, and if they were to come out and make false claims as fact then that would be a serious violation of integrity. These are merely subjective views created by Redbull and those who like them.

In that light, many people do not care what your product/service does technically, and many customers might yawn at the idea of talking about it, at least until they need it or get billed for it! However, with a little thought from you in the beginning, I am sure you can make a list of benefits that each product has, and draw associations of what those benefits represent.

Begin Developing Your Target Market

I would begin to write down who your avatar might be. To do this answer the following questions with this in mind.

1. What age is my ideal client?
2. Are they married? Do they have kids?
3. Where do they live?
4. What are their interests?
5. What are their needs at this age?
6. What conflicts with their needs and their wants?

Once you have developed who you are speaking to, we then want to develop what we are saying to them in general. Here are some ideas to get you started.

1. Where do they hang out online?
2. If I had one product that I sell, that they need, what would it be?
3. What are the features of that product? What are the benefits of that product?
4. What pleasures can I associate?
5. What fears?
6. What can I associate with my product even further out?

This is your homework, write out the answers to these questions. In the next blog, I will detail how to then use this information in your social media efforts. By going through this process you can begin to define your business and yourself in the marketing you endeavor into. Don’t let someone else define what your business is, you need to own this aspect in the marketplace. So get to it and come back next week for our follow-up blog.

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