“I don’t need a target market, I’ll just target everyone. This way I won’t restrict my market and I’ll get more sales.” Does this go through your head whenever someone talks about target markets and your ideal customer? For a very long time this was the issue I faced and it still plagues my thinking. However, knowing your target market is important as it makes your job easier when creating online content. The right content will attract more customers and this will sell more of your products. So how do you decide on your ideal customer?
First you need to determine a target market: the section of the population your product appeals to. What are their values, needs and wants? How can you help them? Your product should fulfil a need or solves a problem that they have. Then, thinking about this target market, pick your ideal customer: one symbolic person you can keep in mind when promoting your product or creating your brand. Give them a name so that when you create content you can ask “Would Sam find this content interesting and useful?”. Everything you publish should appeal to this person.
You may feel that you have multiple ideal customers. Fair enough, but, try to create just one for each area of your business and keep that one in mind when creating content related to that area.
Here is a list of questions you should ask and answer when framing your ideal customer.
Gender?
Age?
Occupation?
Location – inner city, suburbs, rural?
Education level?
Style – clothes, hair, house?
Single or married?
Do they have children? What ages?
What are their hobbies and passions?
What do they read? (blogs/magazines/books/newspapers)
What are their values?
What do they lack that you will provide?
What is their pain point?
What makes your customer feel happy?
Where do they hang out?
Make a poster that captures all these qualities – you can even give your ideal customer a name and grab a random face from the web – and put it up somewhere so you have a reminder of your audience whenever you need to create content.
Tip: If you already have a Facebook following you can check out the analytics section. This will give you some information about the people who already follow you. Do they fit with your ideal customer?
If not, how can you start engaging them?