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| How to find new markets that will dramatically boost your sales |
Find Markets that will Increase Your Sales
Starting a new company is a complicated process, but it is also an exciting one. Any business owner should switch to creativity if business success is a goal. One of the main tasks of entrepreneurs is to decide who will be the target client and why this very product is needed. The more accurate the portrait of the target client will be the more chances you have to boost sales. So let's dive into the details of how it works.
Everyone is not your customer. - Seth Godin
Very often entrepreneurs do not pay too much attention to the definition of their target audience and describe it as too general, e.g. all men and women, live in the USA, have a family, kids and regular job, average income.
Sound familiar, doesn't it? This approach will never bring you much success because it is too general and used by everyone. If you want to achieve success in business you should use your creativity in everything, and the target audience analysis is not an exception.
So, how to find your real target audience?
1. Learn people's behavior
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| Learn people's behavior |
In order to understand who your target clients are you should learn their
- behavior
- interests
- hobbies
- what they love
- and what they don't
It is highly important to make deep research in order to feel your target audience and predict its behavior. Start by describing only one person who could be your ideal client. Add more characteristics to that person and create target groups in accordance with their interests and preferences. From the very beginning, this process may seem to be time-consuming but you will see how such an approach will help you to open new markets and attract more people to your product.
Say you decided to become an online tutor. Who is your target audience? If you target everyone it will be too hard to find your ideal client. But what if you provide your tutoring services to the homeschooling kids only, grades 8-10? It will give you an opportunity to become a go-to person in your niche faster.
Here is another example - say you have a sportswear brand. You can try to target several markets at the same time, but describe all of them in the most accurate way:
- Marathon runners
- sport schools
- bodybuilders;
- and so on…
Create a separate marketing campaign for each of the target groups and analyze the feedback people give after using your product.
2. Narrow your niche
Here is one more important thing to remember - your target audience and business niche are closely connected with each other. Understand your target audience and this will help you to understand your niche more deeply and vice versa. The more accurate your niche statement is, the more chances you have to attract your genuine target audience. Be as specific as you can.
One of the examples of starting a niche business is Facebook. The initial goal of Mark Zuckerberg was to create a network for Harvard University students where they could communicate with each other. And did that successfully.
Currently, Facebook is the number one social network for millions of people all around the world, which shows how a business can grow with time. But remember that this business also started with a niche.
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| A Niche business that is the #1 social network for millions |
Currently, Facebook is the number one social network for millions of people all around the world, which shows how a business can grow with time. But remember that this business also started with a niche.
Targeting specific people in your niche will help you to develop an effective marketing strategy for your business.
Your buyer persona can contain the following characteristics:
- Geolocation
- Profession
- Values
- Interests
- Average income
- Buying preferences
The more characteristics you define the better it is for your marketing strategy. Just a simple example, Facebook is recognized as one of the leading social media platforms with over 2.23 billion of monthly users. How can you use this channel to find your clients if you have no idea who they are?
3. Become a 'go-to' business for your target audience
You cannot please everyone and this is the fact.
The main reason why entrepreneurs prefer targeting too general an audience is that they are afraid to lose clients from other niches. But the reality is the following - a general audience will always give you average results. You can hardly create a brand that stands out on the market if your market is too general. In fact, it means that you don't have a clearly identified niche.
Remember, when you target a specific audience you have more chances to grow your business fast and attract even more people from other markets. So don't be afraid that you are not targeting someone. Care about your genuine clients.
Say you have experience in medicine and decided to offer a content-writing service to the medical companies. Will you spend zillion hours studying law in order to provide the same type of service for this or any other niche? The most effective way to grow is to become a 'go-to' service provider for a narrow audience and only then start thinking about scaling up. Do you agree?
4. Watch what people do - not what people say
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| Watch what people do - not what people say |
According to the study conducted by Custard.com 2/3 of all people lie about themselves on social media.
What does it mean for a business?
Do not believe everything you read. Make deeper research if you want to understand who your real customer is.
Here are some ideas on how you can understand the target audience better:
- invite focus groups and talk about the problems your product solves;
- create online interviews with people offering simple bonuses for their time (i.e. discounts, additional service, etc.)
- A/B testing. You can create several target groups and target each of them on social media measuring the results.
When a business owner dives deeper into psychology in order to understand people's actions the results are always amazing!
Finally
It is not an easy task to identify a target audience for a brand. Nevertheless, this step is fundamental for your business growth. Spend some time for the marketing analysis identifying the problems people have and outlining the ways your brand can help to solve these problems.
As you can see, your target audience is an integral part of the markets you are targeting. The more niche your audience will be the more chances you have to grow your brand fast and boost sales considerably.
Try this approach today!
