To be most effective in your marketing efforts, you need to define your target market. Attempting to sell to a general audience is extremely difficult and usually ineffective. The key is to define your niche market, identify their needs and work to address their challenges. But that is easier said than done.
Sometimes it’s obvious. For example: You make widget ‘A’ that is only needed by auto body shops that repair the drive shaft on 2007 Honda Civic Hybrids. In this case, the marketing pretty much writes itself. But rarely is it that cut and dry. So, if you don’t manufacture that allusive widget ‘A’, you need to define who your product or service helps.
The first step in niche marketing is creating your buyer personas. A buyer persona is a detailed compilation of data; where someone shops, how they spend their vacation, if they own their home, their job title, what keeps them up at night, why they chose to work with your company, etc. Basically, you want to understand what makes them tick.
You accomplish this by interviewing your current clients. Data gathering is an extremely important part of running a business. In order to help your customers, you need to understand where their pain points are. Utilize your established relationships with your customers. They know and trust you. Spending a few minutes answering some question will allow you to help them better. Remember content marketing is about them not you.
After a number of these interviews, patterns will emerge – patterns that identify the type of customer who is most likely to be a client of your company. Based on these patterns, you now understand where you need to focus your marketing energy and dollars. If your research tells you that most of your customers are B2B businesses in scientific research then it would be crazy to focus your efforts on online retail stores.
Create a list of interview questions and reach out to your best customers. If you have built a solid relationship, they will be more than willing to help. Compile this data in an excel spreadsheet and locate the patterns and similarities until you create a few well defined personas.
A well rounded useful persona would look something like this. Note the different colors of numbers — those in orange are the must-have elements of a buyer persona; those in blue are nice-to-have features.:
Utilize all the tools at your disposal. The more information you possess, the more effective you will be.
We Can Help
3D Studios helps businesses grow their influence and their brands. As a boutique brand management agency, we begin with a thorough analysis of your needs and partner with you to develop and execute a marketing plan that will help you take your business to the next level. To learn more about how 3D Studios can help you, visit us at www.3Dstudios.net or call 914-304-4229.
