When you open your doors, having a sense of who your customers will be will make it much easier to drum up interest in what you have to offer. However, don’t make the mistake of focusing on only one target market.
When you start a business, the industry you enter will give you a rough idea of what your customers will look like – opening a restaurant attracts a different clientele than an electronics shop. When you have settled upon the niche your business will occupy, you’ll then need to figure out what kinds of customers you want to attract.
Now, many entrepreneurs that start out with their first company make the mistake of focusing too narrowly on a specific target market and invest their marketing towards that particular group.
Muddled messages that target no one in particular will do little to bring in business.
Why Do Businesses Narrow Target Market?
We’ve all heard that we should be really specific about our target market but that’s really only the case when starting a new marketing campaign.Tthe target market should be small and very focused. However, having this narrow focus for a marketing campaign does not mean that the company should have a very narrow focus.
In reality, you should have various marketing activities that are bringing leads to your company. Diversifying your marketing is a lot more sustainable long term than relying on one lead source. Because anything can happen to where that lead source can stop working for you. In that case, you have to scramble to rebuild your lead flow.
How to Broaden Your Target Markets
Once a target market or a niche is identified, then we can further develop the niche until we master it.
Seth Godin refers to this process as “overwhelming the hive”. As when bees protect and swarm their hive, the same is true about how similar people tend to congregate as a target market. People within the hive naturally spread the word about you until everyone is talking about you and your product and services.
Recognize Problems that Need to be Solved.
Now the narrowing process begins. Identify the problem and create a solution. Ensure that you can create a solution for the target market, which requires some target market research. How do you accomplish this?
Talk to your target demographic. In real life. Online. Just talk.
Play with different keyword combinations on Google Trends and Google AdWords keyword planner. This is a strategy to pinpoint popular searches and pain points.
Determine profitability of the group
By this point, you should have a more focused idea of what niche might suit you the best. At the very least, you should have a few promising ideas you’re excited about. At this point, it’s appropriate to do enough market research that you’ll have an idea of the profit margin possible in this niche.
Harness the power of analytics
Analytics not only tell you what your customers are, but what they commonly look and search for. Analytics are commonly used by businesses that have found and secured their particular customer base, but they can also be used to get a better picture of what your first customers are like. Analytics give you pure data points; they do not tell you what to think, they only give you information. What you do with this information is up to you, but if you use it properly, you can give yourself a major advantage over your less-informed competitors.
In planning your marketing, what are the top three target markets or hives that your company is determined to win with? If you’re still struggling to determine this contact one of our business coaches today to discover how you can improve your marketing efforts with our complimentary business strategy session.
