Strategies: Narrow your focus to hit the market bullseye
— -- Who's your customer?
That's one of the most important questions any business can answer, but it's particularly important for small companies. Why? Because only by having a clear definition of the exact type of customer you're trying to reach can you make the most of your limited marketing dollars and have the biggest impact on your bottom line. You need to know your "target market."
Narrowing the type of customers you'd most like to reach — and the kind that are most likely to be willing, eager and able to buy from you — is a key building block to success. Defining your target market gives focus to all your marketing and sales activities, helps you craft your advertising messages and images, choose where and when to advertise, influences which distribution channels you use and perhaps even helps you decide the color of your employees' uniforms or the music playing in your store.
Let's say you've come up with a new kind of energy bar. You know it would be good for a whole range of people: health buffs, serious athletes, college students, harried moms and busy workers who can't get away for lunch or a snack and just about anyone else who could use a quick, healthy pick-me-up.
That doesn't seem like a diverse target market, but stop and think about it. All those people shop at different stores, read different magazines, visit different websites, listen to different radio stations. If you tried to sell to everyone who might buy your product, you'd need a fortune to spend on marketing to make them all aware of you.
Even if you had the money, what would you say in your ads, what kind of people and images would you feature? Would an athlete respond to a picture of a mom and her 2-year-old, or vice versa? If on your website you used brash language and images to appeal to college students, you might turn off serious vegans.
No, you've got to make tough decisions. You need to select one or two market segments to pursue, especially because yours is a new company, with limited resources. But whom should you sell to? How do you target your market? You have to identify the factors that best make you able to compete, reach and sell to a specific type of customer.
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