Author: Toni Grundstrom
Article source: http://www.articledeshboard.com/. Used with author's permission.
The biggest challenge in marketing is to identify those people who need your services and are willing to pay your prices to receive them. Target marketing allows you to send a specific message to your chosen niche, personalizing your message to satisfy their unique needs.
It is very important that your goals, offer, message and the mailing list you select work together. Take the time to understand who your current customers are so you can create a list of potential buyers who have the same common denominators.
For your marketing to be cost effective you need to pick a target audience, or niche, to focus on. Every person is not going to be interested in your product/service so your marketing dollars are better spent on those with common needs and interests. By marketing to your target audience, who already have a need for your services, you immediately increase your marketing campaign's likelihood of success.
Narrowing Your Focus
Who are your existing customers and what common denominators do they share? Your goal should be to focus on locating more individuals that have those same common denominators. There are several ways to narrow down your target audience.
1) Demographics - Focus on a particular characteristic of people. These can include their career, a hobby or interest, their income level, age, marital status, etc. Collect information about the people themselves.
2) Geographical area - Focus in on a particular neighborhood, community, or geographic area. How far does your product/service cover. If you sell your product online demographics can include rural, urban, state, country, or even P.O. Box.
Benefits of Segmenting a Target Audience
Increased marketing results. You will be able to focus your message to address the unique needs of your niche. This means addressing their common issues and explain specifically how you can help them with that issue.
Decreased marketing cost. Targeting your audience means you have a good idea of where to advertise. You can use the smaller publications rather than expensive mass media. Your niche is focused and smaller so fewer direct mail pieces need to be sent. You can also afford to send out multiple mail pieces to create frequency to get your audience to remember you.
When one message is sent to any and everyone you can't tell them exactly what they need to hear. Your marketing piece will fall on 'deaf ears' because each person has different motivations for buying, personal needs, professional needs, wants, goals, and the like. What is an effective sales piece to one person may be a complete turn off to another.
The goal of your marketing is to get into the heads of your prospects and figure out their needs, issues and motivations. Why do they want or need to buy your product/service and are there any objections and concerns you need to overcome for them to purchase from you? The only way to do that is to focus on your niche. If your general message read, "I Am The Best Person To Buy Carpet Cleaner From" your message will not even be noticed. Compare that to "Your Stained Carpet Cleaned With Insti-Fresh In 5 Minutes" sent to homeowners with pets or toddlers and they will identify and read the rest of your message.
It may be necessary to create various sets of your niche to target different segments. However, to do so, you need different sets of marketing materials focusing on the needs/wants of each of your different segments.
Now that you have completed your target marketing and identified your niche you should look at its size. How big your target audience is depends on your marketing budget and how much income you want to generate. To do this, calculate:
-Your target revenue goal.
-Your average sales/customer.
-How many sales do you need to reach that goal (target income/ ave sales per client)
-How many prospects there are in your target audience?
-How many current clients do you have in that segment?
-What is your market penetration? (# of current clients / # of prospects in area)
These numbers will help you to determine if the niche you have chosen will bring in your revenue goal. Use your marketing plan to develop the marketing mix that will get your specific message out consistently to identify and satisfy your target audience's needs.
Toni Grundstrom is a freelance writer with emphasis in the Marketing field. She has worked for a professional legal association, government entity, and small businesses. With 17 years of experience I provide valuable content in all aspects of Marketing. Create your targeted list and choose from various marketing pieces for your campaign at MyPostcardCompany.com.
This article may be distributed freely on your website, as long as
this entire article, including links and this resource box are unchanged
Tags:
|
Print this page
