One of the most important issues to address in your business life is identifying your target audience and ideal customer. Without honing in on a specific target audience, you run the risk of missing the mark. There are several easy steps to identify your target audience and ideal customer.
For the first 6 months of business I was marketing to everyone. The clients’ I gained during that time weren’t the best fit for me and my business values; although it was good to have clients’ I wasn’t happy doing the work I was doing for them.
What should have been a joyous time working for myself, soon turned into a bit of a drudge.
I then signed up for a 30 Days to Boost your Biz course with The Girl Means Business and during those 30 days many things became clear. The first and most important of which for me was that I didn’t have an ideal client. I was marketing my business to everyone, everywhere. I may have well not bothered, as it was a waste of time and energy. It was a bit like throwing pebbles at a tin can 150 feet from where I was standing.
Thinking of my ideal client, really unleashed my creative side and I set about marketing my business differently. I thought about every minuscule detail, even down to what they enjoyed doing during time away from work, where they lived, and most importantly how I could make their lives better. I even gave them names! Once I started to market to those I wanted to work with, my IC everything became so much clearer. All of a sudden I was only a few feet from that tin can, and I was getting multiple hits.
Set Your Goals and Keep Your Goals
Other than visualisation one of the best ways to identify your target audience is by setting goals for your business. Once you have set identifiable goals, your ideal customer will present him or herself.
[bctt tweet=”Keeping true to those goals will ensure that your target audience and ideal customer will return time and again.”]
Measure Your Goals
Once you have established what your goals are, it is important to revisit those goals and measure them on a regular basis.
A great way to measure your goals to see if they are up-to-date is to utilise social media. Have your customers or clients take a survey or enter a contest to see whether or not your company is meeting and exceeding their needs.
Make sure to communicate with potential customers on social media. Respond to their comments, and communicate via Twitter.
Choose a Niche
Once you have set your goals and have established ways to measure those goals, make certain that you stick within your niche. Often times, business owners tend to waiver outside their niche. Sometimes creative ideas just seem to flow and flow; however, you must be true to your niche at all times. This is how you will be able to identify your target audience and your ideal customer.
Create a Sub-Niche
Once you have created a niche, see if you can break it down further and create a sub-niche. A niche would be something like divorced women and a sub-niche would be divorced women with small children. Perhaps your business is a life coaching business that empowers divorced women with smaller children to educate themselves so that they can provide for themselves and their families.
Once you start your new business, you will begin to notice who is responding and who is not responding. In this way, you can measure your target audience a little better and hone in on your ideal customer.
For example, you may notice that divorced women with older children may be in a better position to use your products and services as compared to divorced women with younger children. Your target audience may present itself a little bit differently than you had planned.
Stay flexible, keep an open mind, but once you have established your ideal customer, make certain to keep it there and dedicate all your time and effort to that target audience and its ideal customer.
I would never turn a potential client away because they aren’t my ideal client, but I don’t put my efforts into marketing to them anymore.
