You love serving others. You have a compelling message to share, and you believe everyone can benefit from this message.
The problem is, while your message could benefit many people, it is broad and diluted. No one is hearing it. It’s simply not possible for you and your brand to appeal to everyone.
Here’s what this could look like. You write beautiful blog posts that no one reads. You post thought-provoking social media posts but no one likes or comments on them.
Contents:
Ideal Client
The number one problem could be that you do not understand your target market and have not developed a clear vision of your ideal client.
This is a mistake that new, and quite often, even established business owners make. As a result, the customers whom you’d love to work with, and who would love to work with you, are unable to find you.
Who Is Your Target Market?
For some time after venturing into the online world, it was very confusing for me to understand the distinction between three phrases that are often used in marketing and business circles; mainly because many people use these terms interchangeably.
Hence, when I discovered Michael Port’s (of the Book Yourself Solid System) clear description, it was with a sense of relief I embraced the explanation. This description made it easy for me to understand the distinctions.
Target Market: The group of people you serve with a network of communication between them.
Niche: The service you specialize in offering your target market.
Ideal Client: Your ideal client is a smaller, clearly-defined group of people within your target market whom you serve. In addition, your ideal client has the ability to pay you to solve the problems that they have.
Why Identify Your Niche and Ideal Client
This was a challenge for me when I first started my online journey in 2008. I wanted to help everyone with Online Marketing: blogging, article marketing, affiliate marketing, and so on. I found it hard to niche down. It took a lot of tweaking and evaluating the clients who connected with me and sought me out to recognize who my ideal client was.
Within my first year, I gained clarity that my ideal client was a woman in her late forties to early fifties who wanted to start an online business and use social media and customer experience to grow her business.
Since that time, I’ve expanded my niche (the service I specialize in), as well as my target market (the group of people).
Are you having a challenge with defining your ideal client? Let’s start with the following three points:
- Gender
- Goals
- His or her point in the journey
Gender. Is your audience male or female? While men and women might both read and enjoy your content—and even buy your products—you will most likely find that your market is skewed heavily one way or the other.
Men and women are different, and they are affected by stories and branding in very different ways, so what appeals to a man will not always appeal to a woman. Look around at some of the brands you buy, and you’ll quickly see how they form their messages to appeal to one or the other, but very rarely both.
Goals. What does your client hope to achieve, and how do your products and services help to realize those goals? Whether she’s trying to build a profitable gardening blog and be a stay-at-home Mom, or he’s working to create gaming apps and gaming websites, you must understand clearly where they are right now and where they want to go. When you enroll in their vision, while identifying what’s holding them back, you can help them get there.
His or her point in the journey. Is she a beginner or well along on the path? How you speak, how you write, what marketing methods you use, and even what prices you charge will all be determined by your ideal client’s level of sophistication.
If you’re working with beginners—people just starting out, or people who have been in business for some time, your message is going to be different. You will not reach your market effectively if you don’t know exactly where they are and what they need.
Of course, if you’re just starting out, you might not yet know who your ideal client is. That’s okay, too. But pay attention, because they will tell you. They’ll tell you through the products and services they buy. They’ll tell you by following you (or not) on social media. They’ll tell you by commenting on your blog and asking questions that are relevant to them.
Watch your interactions, study the businesses of those who contact you for help, and take a look at what your competition is doing, and soon enough you’ll have a clear understanding of who your ideal client really is.
My goal in providing the following information is to help you define your ideal clients more clearly so you tailor your marketing message to them. This way, when they hear your message, your prospects will say, “She’s/He’s talking to me.”
The 1-Page Marketing Plan
In the 1-Page Marketing Plan, Allen Dibb’s description of a Target Market and niche differ from the definition I gave above. However, what’s most important is that when I read his book, he stressed the importance of having a defined niche.
“A niche is a tightly defined portion of a subcategory.” Here is an example he gave: there is the health and beauty category. A sub-category would be cellulite treatment. But then you could go even deeper and tighten it up to market to “cellulite treatment for women who’ve just had a baby”.
Many people may conclude that narrowing their message this much, it would mean leaving lots of people behind. That may be true. But the targeted and defined people who actually need your services, and can pay for your services—your ideal clients—will hear your message and want to work with you. And isn’t that what you really want? I highly encourage you to read this book to design your own Marketing Plan with your Target Market, Ideal Client, and Niche.
Thank you for reading. Please ask your questions or leave your comments below. I read each one and will be sure to respond.
