The success of your personal blog, online shop or business (online or offline) depends on you clearly defining your target audience if you expect to build a solid foundation so that you engage readers to create a profitable long-term asset.
Understanding who you want to attract is crucial to every decision you make, from the words in your marketing messages to website design, including the channels you use for advertising and communication. It’s fundamental to your success!
Understanding who your target audience is and how to reach them with the right message is key to business success.
What you need to know
Your first research is to uncover the “ frequency “ of the pain, problems, fears and doubts of your audience. Only then you are able to carefully craft your message to resonate with them.
Do you already know the frequency at which your audience resonates and can you craft your message to shine through all the BS to communicate at a heartfelt level?
Your marketing message must grab your prospect’s attention and clearly show them how you (products or services) can solve their problem, why they should trust you, and why they should choose you over and above all other choices.
Your marketing message should speak to your prospect in their language. This is done by communicating at the right frequency to resonate with your audience’s sensitivities which in turn triggers an emotional reaction. Usually to buy products or seek more information.
The goal of your promotional engagement is to attract like-minded souls and encourage those who are not interested to move on – because the key to success is not the size of your list. Success will come almost automatically with a high level of interest and focused response from the folks on your list.
Therefore, everything needs to be focused, authentic and in perfect order.Advertising, capture page, website name, consistent message – service – email follow up must all be congruent to resonate at the right frequency.You get the picture right?
To get your marketing efforts effectively working for you – it’s essential to know exactly who you are speaking to before you write a single word.Focus on this first and everything else will fall into place for you as a natural progression.
Get up close and personal…
Get specific about who you want to reach as an ideal prospect. You want to zero in on a specific ‘character’ who represents your ideal customer or prospect for your marketing efforts. And you want to speak directly to him or her with all your messages, content and offers.
BTW – No, your audience isn’t everybody – even if you think everyone needs your service or products or business… they don’t! Find the ones who are hungry for your offer and invest your time in them. Your business will grow dramatically faster as a result.
Get creative! Give him or her a name and develop their persona based on your research and imagine how they feel, talk, think, react etc. This is not a childish game. It’s an extremely powerful marketing method to keep your focus on your ideal ‘character’ so you can accelerate your success.
It will help you to market to your ideal prospect. As a result, all your communications will be more vibrant and meaningful because you are targeting a “real” person as you create your material. Have some fun with it!
Write ALL your material to this one person.
Avoid the ‘Halo Effect’ pitfall!
How often have you heard…
Everyone needs this – I want to help people who don’t understand what my products or service can do for them…
aaahhh – Time for a reality check in your marketing strategy!
Yes, it’s a beautiful thought stemming from your desire to serve and make a difference in the world by offering your gifts. However, it’s crucial to know this: – trying to serve people who are unaware they need your help can be devastating to your business!
The truth is – when you try to convince people they need what you offer you weaken your foundation for your success. Your ideal customer or “character” must have a “felt need”. Here’s why…
Your character is someone who:
- Is aware they have a challenge or problem that needs to be solved
- Recognizes the issue is important enough they must take action to solve it
- Has the ability to pay to solve the problem
These 3 critical traits are essential for your business success when identifying your character. I suggest you do this: Write this mantra in big letters and hang it where you’ll see it every time you speak to your ideal customer. You have probably picked a name for your character by now, right????
So something like this may work for you:
“Alice Turner deeply feels the need for a solution to her problem and she can afford to pay for it…”
This focused targeting will save you years of struggling for success. Because you were smart enough (right out of the gate) to put your offer in front of only those who are already hungry for it.
How to focus on your ‘character’
When you focus on your character’s pains, desires, fears & doubts, and emotions – you’ll get far better results than if you focus on how great you think your product is. No one cares unless it solves their problem.
The quickest way to develop a ‘market first‘ mindset is to use this exercise I borrowed from Ben Settle.It simply works – no matter what industry, niche or audience you are targeting.
Yes, I know what you’re thinking right now.“Do I really have to do this?It’s hard work to get focused on well-organized planning!I just want to start getting customers…”
Roll up your sleeves and get started now – you’ll be happy later on when you see the results you get by starting with a marketing mindset.
Questions are THE answer
Gather your marketing intelligence with answers to revealing questions about your ideal customer. It provides the fuel to drive all your marketing content.
- What causes them pain?
- What are they afraid of?
- What keeps them awake at night?
- What makes them angry?
- What humiliates them?
- Who are they furious with?
- What do they worry about most?
- What values do they embrace?
- What is their most urgent ‘trigger’ crisis right now?
- Who are their enemies?
- What income bracket are they in?
- What political views do they hold?
- What frustrates them most?
- What do they WANT more than anything else?
Got the idea? Great!
You may uncover more gems as you start working through the exercise. Yes, it will take work to do the research, but it will arm you with an incredible arsenal. One you’ll be happy you built up right at the beginning of your project.
Why is all this stuff important?
Why should you do all this research about your prospects? It’s foundational to the success of your business because it gets you thinking of their problems instead of your product’s features.And therein lies the key to all effective marketing…
When you talk about their problems, pains, desires or wants, you will never bore them or lose their interest. And whatever communication you write will never be ignored by them. Are you starting to see the significance of defining your audience?
What do I communicate?
Simple. Don’t copy what many of the others in your niche are doing. Most of it doesn’t work. Instead… figure out your audience’s pains or problems and write all your communications around solutions for that. This will be your “image of difference” and will definitely get you noticed as someone who cares about his or her customers.
If you set up your business foundation properly -you’ll find you never run out of ideas to write headlines, ads, blog titles, email subject lines, and sales copy. And your focus on your ideal character will reward you in ways you can’t even dream of yet.
Exciting eh?
The bottom line is…
You’ll save weeks and even months wallowing in the frustration of failure if you clearly define who you want to work with and who you want to avoid right up front. You’ll be rewarded with faster results and higher profits.
You’ll get more referrals and sell more products on every step of your journey. And you’ll have way more fun too. Got it? Good!
Ready to get started?