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Know Your Target Market
Defining Your Target
Market Equals Success
Often times the first thing a business owner thinks is that they
need to appeal to a wide market in order to see success in their
business. Actually that's going to end up having the opposite
effect. You will find that by limiting your market you will reach a
higher level of success. Something like biscuits for soup would be
made from scratch.
As an example let's look at cookbooks. Martha Stewart, for example,
was a caterer that created an empire of domesticity by writing a
cookbook. She's known for cooking from scratch. Not just simple
meals but lavish, gourmet meals.
Now think of Rachael Ray. She's known for her 30 minute meals. Her
recipes are not only easy but quick as well. If one of her recipes
called for biscuits, unlike Martha Stewart she would probably use
biscuits from a tube.
Back to cookbooks. Both Rachael Ray and Martha Stewart sell lots of
cookbooks but they appeal to entirely different markets. Martha
appeals to those people that have a lot of time on their hands and
can devote the time and energy into creating a lavish gourmet meal
from scratch. Where Rachael appeals to the ones that don't have the
time to create recipes from scratch. She reaches the target market
of those that are strapped for time and want something quick and
easy but not fast food from the drive-thru.
Both of these women are able to sell more cookbooks and enjoy more
success because they create cookbooks that appeal to their target
market. Think about it for a minute - If Rachael tried to sell her
cookbooks to Martha's market they probably wouldn't be interested
(and vice versa).
Now that we've established what target market is it's time to talk
about how to go about determining your target market.
The first thing that needs to be done is you need to be familiar
with your product. You'll have to know whether there is something
you can offer that is better than your competitors. What is it and
who is going to benefit from this?
Answer those couple questions will you give you a pretty good idea
of who you are trying to reach. Now it's time to take a deeper look
at their needs. Are they male or female? What age group do they fall
under? What is their geographical location? Are they parents? Are
they employed and if so what kind of work do they do?
Now that you are digging deeper and answering those questions you
can ask yourself yet another question - what are their problems and
how can you (your product or service) help them? This is an
important question and it's one that will help you create an
effective marketing campaign geared towards your target market.
You can (and should) take it one step further. Create a survey and
invite your customers to fill it out. There's no one better to tell
you what they need and want than your customers! You can create the
survey and put it on your site or you can use surveymonkey.com to
create one and they'll host it on their site.
Another tool you can use is Wordtracker. This will allow you to
figure out what keywords and keyword phrases your target market is
using to search for services or products you offer. Not only is this
tool a great way to find out what they are searching for it's also
going to show you what they are willing to spend money on.
It can be a little overwhelming to narrow down your target market
and clearly define who they are but it's so worth it. Having a
targeted market is going to help you achieve success by creating
more sales than if you were trying to reach a general market.
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