Friday, July 30, 2010

Understanding & Focusing On Your Audience

Good day and I hope things are going well for you on the other
side of the screen. I've had some interesting exchanges this week
with prospects, customers and friends. One of the topics was
about better understanding your audience.

You know it's not uncommon for a small business person and
especially an online marketer to believe that the world's their
oyster. I've been guilty of this in the past myself. I know I'm a
good marketer and creative thinker and process person. When folks
used to ask me who needs my services, I would respond "Everyone!"

While there may have been some elements of truth to that claim,
the truth is I am most successful in companies that are founder
led and where there is a noticeable vacuum in marketing and/or
operations. Typically, the companies that I do best with have a
founder who is trying to spin many plates by himself. It's only
when some of those plates start to fall and impact his business
negatively that he begins to understand the value of having a
right-hand man to spin his marketing and/or operations plates.

So now when people ask me who uses my services I am very clear to
tell them small to medium sized businesses which are founder led
and have vacuums in marketing and operations. This narrows the
audience for me and also helps me to quickly qualify potential
new clients. If they don't really fit the mold, then I do not
pursue them as aggressively as I might chase another that better
fits my audience focus.

Knowing your audience is invaluable. Now it's easy if you
manufacture pipe valves. You know who needs them. But if you
offer soft services or generic products, then you really need to
get your arms around your audience.

Likewise, if you are selling an info product, it really pays to
know who can benefit most from your information and experience.
For instance, if you have a product that helps people make money,
you need to carefully consider how to narrow that audience.
Keeping a narrow focus makes it easier to market your product and
lowers your cost of customer acquisition, too.

Knowing who your audience is means you must make sure your
supporting web site sales letter or sales presentation or
marketing collateral is also written to that specific audience.
If you have multiple audiences, it might help to have multiple
landing pages on your site and multiple presentations and
brochures written for each audience.

Understanding this can help you run a more productive business.

It also may show you developing niches for your services. For
instance, over the past 5 years I see I have worked with lots of
folks in the health niche. This includes private coaches,
nutritionists, diet authors, exercise gurus, doctors, etc. Now I
look for opportunities in that market.

So think carefully about who you are trying to sell to. A wide
funnel may seem advantageous, but you have to go through a lot of
prospects to make a sale. A narrow funnel produces more leads and
sales.

I wanted to share a review of a product that really helped me out
this week. It's called Topaz Moment and it's great for capturing
high quality stills from your videos. You can read about it here:

http://www.cooltoolawards.com/software/multimedia/topazmoment.htm


Until next time,

Steven

P.S. : Click the link below to share this with a friend:

http://getresponse.com/forward.html?x=a62b&m=lujq&s=BM46r&y=t&

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