One of my tweets… ‘sales efficiency: identify and focus on your target market‘, illicted some negative feedback from @aileen456. Now, I was a tad surprised that a simple efficiency tip could attract some negative feedback. As @aileen456 stated in her reply to me,
“it really annoys me when people say that. Cause they never follow it with instructions on how to pinpoint them.”
So, here (and dedicated to @aileen456) are my instructions on how to pinpoint your target audience.
Before I start, if you don’t know who your target audience is, then, in my humble opinion, your business is probably a hobby of yours… But, the question is, how do you find your target audience?
For a business to be profitable, it needs to be able to provide a product or service to a target audience who is willing to pay a profitable price for it. Easy to say, less easy to actually do in practice. But, I’m still not quite answering the question of how do you find your target audience… (Sorry @aileen456)
There are two ways of going about finding a target audience. You can either develop a product or service and then find out who it appeals to, or you can choose a target audience, for example, professional advisers, and find out what products or services they require and are prepared to pay for, and you can also provide. (That is quite a crucial point, if they are not prepared to pay the price you need to charge to make your product or service profitable, then you have a major problem and the makings of a failed business.)
Personally, I think that researching your chosen target audience first, and finding out what needs, problems, pains they suffer, is the most efficient method of pin pointing your target audience. Before, you pick your target audience, you need to analyse who you already have credibility with (this saves a lot of time, as before you can establish a decent revenue stream, you need to build up credibility) who you enjoy working with, and who you have reasonable access to. For example, although I loved working with Mumpreneurs and have excellent access to them, it’s taken me nearly 12 months to find a way of providing a product which was affordable for them to buy, and cost effective for me to produce and market. (By the way, watch out for my suite of on-line training products, which will go live over the next few months at www.30daysto.co.uk focusing on the needs to mumpreneurs) This is the reason why you have seen me focusing on professional advisors exclusively for the last 9 months.
Although my team is shortly to expand, for the first 12 months of my business life, it was only me driving the business. So, I needed to focus on a niche which I had credibility working with, AND who could afford my desired fee level. If you are wondering I’ve spent the last 6 years working within professional services… Now that the team is expanding, I can afford and am able to diversify my target market.
So, hopefully @aileen456 I’ve answered your question on how to actually pin point your target audience.
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