When you decide to go into business you need to be absolutely clear about who will buy your product and why.
There six questions you must be able to answer about your target market, who,when,where,what,why and how. The answer to these questions will tell you the type of people you’re aiming at but it won’t tell you how many of them there are.
Once you have answered these question, it is time to further break down your target market into niches that will provide you with more clarity about your customers. And now what? It is time to do it again.
That is right your target market can be broken down further into niches that will help give you even more clarity about your customer and how you can curb their frustration.
Let’s break this down further – Once you have answered the above question with confidence and clarity, have a look at the market that you have defined and see how you can break it down even further. Eg: My broader target market is business ownerd ranging from start-ups to $5 million businesses. Within this there are other sort of niches that i can target separately. Such as traders, professional services, manufacturing, retail, boutiques, hospitality, entertainment and arts.
As broad category they fall into my target market, but have a think about each niche and the questions we posed above. By defining and identifying these niches I can improve my focus even further,
Consider vertical market too – And even in these niches, there are further vertical markets you can target, for example, within trades you have plumbers, electricians, carpenters, tilers, roofers, and the list goes on and on. Within the professional services, we have doctors, lawyers, accountants, architects and much more.
You can even break down doctors down into chiropractors, physios, GPs. oncologists, podiatrists, surgeons and cardiologists. The high-level categories are very useful, once you break it down even further you will really be able to identify with clarity and confidence who your target market is, why they buy from you and how you can reach them.
In my business, when I really want to focus what i am doing I might spend the who quarter just focusing for example tailors.
The Drain man, Vital Jammal, who will be the guest speaker, at our 100J at the end of October is a great example of finding a niche. They are registered plumbers, but they just clear and recline drains.That’s it.They don’t do taps or hot water service or showers.
It’s just like a brain surgeon compared to a GP, they are plumbers with specialists solutions. The industry is plumbing but the niche is drain -clearing.
Define your marketing strategies – While the overall #1 Big Outcome might be the same for an architect and a physio – say, to increase business by 100% in 12 months- how they each go about it will be different, so this allows me to tailor offers even more specially to meet these clients’ needs.
Will the architect and physio read the same industry magazines, attend the same events and have the same colleagues. Not likely. So my marketing has to be different. What is investment and ROI for each? What are their frustrating and their freedoms? When will they buy from me? While their goals may be broadly similar, everything my business does can be refined to better meet the needs of these two different businesses, thereby, increasing the chances that hey will purchase from me and not competitors.
Each one of the niches you identify needs to be defined and dissected, just like your overall target market. You need to ask the who, where, what,when, why and how questions again then identify its size, how much of it you currently have and how much of it you would like to have in what time frame.
This is the start of creating a marketing plan with clarify and confidence and turning your business into a well- oiled machine.
Who are you building your business for? What is the cut? The underlying foundation? If you don’t know who these people are and what they want, the only way you can solve their problems is by getting lucky, and luck is not a solid business fundamental or a strategy for success.
Okapi Digital Marketing 