Offer What Your Targeted Audience Wants

When you know your customer, you have a clear picture of the people you are targeting.

Let’s take a look at the diet market, which is huge! As a result, it may be possible to sell any weight-loss program to the mass market of overweight people. However, I guarantee that anyone in this market will have greater success if they narrow their target (as discussed in the last posting) and aim for a specific demographic. For example – overweight women.

To make the target even better, it should be narrowed down more – for example:  to overweight new moms who are struggling with excess baby weight.  Then, down another level to new moms struggling with excess baby weight who live in California and love to run. That is a very specific target and provides a much better chance of finding a loyal audience.

When you do your research and refine your chosen market to a narrow, well-defined group, you will be able to build a loyal following of people who share a common problem or passion.

When your audience is well-defined and has uniform interests and needs, it is much easier to get to know them, to establish strong working relationships with them, to create a powerful, effective marketing plan, and eventually to sell to them.

Identify the Ideal Customer

Identifying your ideal customer comes about naturally as you go through the process of narrowing down your target. You can use demographics (age, gender, location, ethnicity, family status (single/married), income, education, native language, occupation, etc. This is all information you would find on a census from.

You can also use psychographics (hobbies, politics, hopes, fears, likes, dislikes, hobbies, and attitudes about life, etc.) These will give you deeper insights into your customers. The more psychographic information you can gather, the better you will understand and know your customers.

Identify their Problems

If you pay attention to the data you are collecting, the picture of your ideal customer will begin to take shape. You will also be able to identify exactly what the group’s most painful problem or problems are.

Your goal is to develop and offer solutions to those problems because people in pain are willing to pay for solutions.

Offer Solutions

Once you understand what your customers’ problems are, make it your mission to find solutions that you can offer. This is an ongoing process. You want to continually be developing new products/services that address their needs. As long as you provide legitimate, quality solutions, people will come back again and again to buy.

Knowing your Customers Takes Work  – Find Solutions to Their Problems

1. Put yourself in their shoes and search online for things that could help you (them).
2. Find the most popular sites that your potential customers frequent and visit them regularly.
3. Follow conversations and read comments on all social media that appeal to your audience. FB groups can be very useful from an educational stand point.
4. Join forums, follow the conversations, and actively participate, offering your own words of wisdom.
5. Do not be a silent, anonymous bystander. Become involved by asking questions and offering solutions.  Be a sponge, take notes, and learn as much as you can.
6. Don’t overwhelm yourself. Pick two or three of your potential customers’ social media haunts and “listen” to what is being said, notice the questions they are asking over and over, and the answers that are being posted. What products/services are they using and discussing – what do they like and dislike – and why? Pay particular notice where there are gaps in the information and available products. The gaps are opportunities for you to fill.

Let Them Get to Know You

Become a real person with important thoughts on the subjects being discussed. Help them to recognize that you are one of them. Tell your story – let them get to know you. This is not the time to sell, or even recommend products. That will come later. This is a time for learning and building relationships.

The more they learn about you, the more they will trust you, which will eventually lead to sales.

The more you can learn about your potential customer, the more you will understand their pain and/or passion.  All your new-found knowledge will help you create a very specific marketing plan that will ring true with your audience when you are ready to start selling.  Your message will connect with them in a powerful way – they won’t be able to resist.

They will feel like they know you, which makes it easier to trust you – and ultimately to buy from you.  

Related Articles: 

• Narrow your Market to Find an Audience

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