Identifying Your Target Market
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Thanks for joining me for the third post in my Planning a Website the Organized Way series!
If you haven’t yet set up your website planner and created your business profile, you may want to do that before you continue.
Now that you have a clear picture of your business, you’re probably anxious to share it with the world, but remember this:
Your website needs to make it evident whom your products and services are designed to help. The people whose problems you solve are your target market.
If you’re not sure who your target market is, it’s time to conduct some research. Study the demographics and psychographics of your best clients, and determine what they have in common.
Do you prefer to work with young families? Seniors? Home-based businesses? Non-profit organizations? Corporations? Where are they located? What is their level of education and economic status?
When your ideal prospect visits your site, it should be obvious that you’re talking to him or her so you can quickly create the essential “know-like-trust” factor.
Tailoring the design and content of your site to appeal to the people you’re trying to reach will go a long way, and the better you understand your target market, the easier it is to direct your message to your ideal client.
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This is a great post to help us get to the short cut of finding our market. When you find a niche, it is really about about working with who you work best with. Taking a few minutes to assess who you work well with can yield great results.
That’s very true, Ellen. A lot of business owners are afraid that focusing on one market will limit their potential, but in fact the opposite is true. When you write as though you’re speaking directly to your ideal client instead of the whole world, you’re way more likely to “click” with the right people!
Find out where your audience is. It’s not enough to just say who your target audience is. Find out which websites they visit and which social networks they most frequently check. Are they glued to their email? Are they addicted to apps? The information you put together for your customer profile, combined with knowing where your audience hangs out online or how they use technology, will facilitate the delivery of your message.
Thanks for your comment – that’s definitely valuable information to take into account when developing your marketing strategy, but it may not be essential in the early stages of planning a website.
This is great! I totally agree. I like to ask myself, “what is my ideal visitor?” It helps me get more specifics on what I am looking for. Thanks for the reminder.
You’re very welcome! I was in business for 7 years before I pinned down my niche, and even longer before I was comfortable putting it out there, so I’m happy to help shorten those timelines for someone else.
Very informative read and thanks for sharing Janet!
Without identifying your target market and catering for them you are at risk of alienating the people that were drawn to your service/product in the first place.
Thanks, Matt – I appreciate your comment!