How Will You Target Your Target?

Posted by Tobin Truog · June 3, 2009 · Print This Article

Do you know who your business serves? Can you describe in detail who your target market really is? Does this description really feed and inspire you?

It should!

Before building an overall marketing plan, and particularly before thinking about any tools and tactics might help you…you have to know who you are trying to find. And shouldn’t you know who is trying to find you too?

Defining your target market is NOT: “18 to 65, living in a big city or small town, and a person who likes to travel or who wants to stay home”

Often target markets are set up with general demographic terms that are so flaccid as to be useless…essentially you are saying, “everyone needs my service.” This approach doesn’t help you or your business.

Instead, wouldn’t it be better to find your target market in a way that really digs deep into your passion, into who you are, and into who you dream of serving?

Try answering questions like:

What does your best customer struggle with?
What question makes your customers uncomfortable?
Is there an issue that a particular subset of an industry you serve has to deal with?

Now try writing that stuff down from the point of view of your customer…not from the point of view of what you do. You don’t serve these folks yet…you are just trying to find your market.

Try this too:

1. Write down your new target market description on piece of paper and keep it somewhere convenient. Your pocket for a couple of days…your computer bag right where you keep your keys, the console in your car.

2. Every time you think about a customer, jot down a problem, issue or challenge that they have faced. (You may have helped them with the issue. Challenges you have NOT addressed with people are also important to record.) Write these ideas down for several days…or just keep the paper handy all the time.

3. Every time you meet with or talk to an existing customer, ask them to describe the stuff that frustrates them. What scares them about what they do? What are they unsure about? Is there stuff where they say, “we don’t know what we don’t know.” Write these ideas down. Just keep a list of this scary stuff.

4. At the end of the week…compare your notes to your target market description. Do you match up? Are you serving the people you say you serve? Is there a target market you could serve that you are not?

The idea here is to find the intersection between what your customers need help with and the stuff you do best. Do not focus on the areas of the industry you serve that do not inspire you. There IS an intersection that will speak to you, and what you are passionate about. Serve that target market relentlessly.

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