Taking the First Steps to Defining Your Audience
The first step in establishing your target market is to understand exactly why anyone would be looking for your product. Ask yourself what problem does your product solve? Also ask yourself what type of person or business would be willing to pay for your product as a solution to their problem.
Let Research Lead the Way
When determining your target market, who you think is your ideal customer, may not necessarily be right. It’s best to let research lead the way and take the guess work out of the equation.
Narrowing Down Your Target Market
By looking at the statistics of who has already bought from you can help narrow down your target market. Look for trends in geography, gender, age group, financial status and interests. All of these criteria can help you piece together a picture of your ideal customer.
Are most of your customers local or global? Male or female? Do you sell more products in-store or online? Answering questions like these can also show you who your ideal customers are and how to best sell to them.
Check Out the Competition
Evaluating your competition and their marketing strategies is another way you can define your own target market. Looking at how they market and who they seem to be marketing to will give you an idea of your industry’s ideal customer.
As you probe deeper into your target market, you need to determine whether or not you can effectively reach those people. Study your target demographic and their purchasing patterns.
If you have a brick-and-mortar store, also look into your target market’s geographic location. You can use this information to find out if the people that live closest to your store are the same people who want to buy from you.
If you are solely operating online, learning about your potential customers’ location and shopping habits can help you reach those customers.
Expanding the knowledge of Your Audience
As your business grows, so should your marketing efforts. Over time you may have to redefine your target market and change up how you are marketing to them. You will need to consider if the direct marketing methods you’re using now will still be effective later on down the line.
You also may decide to expand your current target market to include other newly discovered prospects. If you want to grow your business you constantly need to be working your marketing plan.
Take-A-Ways
The best way to succeed at selling your products is to market directly to those who are genuinely interested. Once you figure out who your customers are, what they need and how they shop, you will have a good idea of who you should be focusing your marketing efforts on.
By arming yourself with as much information about your ideal customer as you can, you can push your sales over the top.
About the Author
Greg Rubin is the Senior List Broker at Prospects Influential Inc., a respected direct marketing list brokerage company with almost 20 years of experience in the Direct Marketing and List Brokering industry .Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/8822932
