Who is your target market?
Did you answer
with "people" or something similar? Then your business probably won't
last long. As someone wise once said, "If you market to everyone, you
market to no one."
Before you create your sales page -- heck,
even before you create your product -- you need to know who you will be
marketing to. You need to understand your niche.
Now, niches come
in all sizes. For example, "horse lovers" is a niche, but a very broad
one that might be difficult to market to. However, "horse lovers who
follow dressage" is a much more targeted niche. So, what is a niche and
how do you define one?
First, what is a niche? A niche, within
the context of business, is a tightly targeted market comprised of
people who hold specific characteristics in common that are related to
buying behavior.
There are several ways to define a niche. But
your first step needs to come from within. Who do you want to spend
your time working with? What kinds of people do you enjoy helping? What
kinds of people do you care deeply about and want to help grow and
prosper?
Remember, you'll be building your business around your
niche, so you don't want to build it around a niche you don't like. For
example, I'm not too keen on working with arachnocologists (people who
study spiders, scorpions, ticks and other eight-legged bugs) -- not to
say they aren't nice people, I just find spiders and other arachnids
pretty darn icky. So, I'm not going to build a business for that niche.
This
little exercise might not give you a very narrow niche, but it is a
good start. For example, lets say you love working with horse lovers.
That's good! Now you need to narrow that down a bit, at least for your
first line of products and services.
So, how do you do that? Well, how can you divide horse lovers into smaller groups?
- How about geographically: horse lovers in the upper north west U.S.
- How about by gender: women horse lovers
- How about by age: horse lovers over the age of 50
- How about demographically: horse lovers with an income of at least $75,000
- How about psycho-graphically: horse lovers who follow dressage
Do you see what I'm getting at? By using several
different criteria, you could come up with a very targeted niche, such
as teen horse lovers from the Midwest. Now you've got a niche that
should be easy to communicate with. You can understand their needs and
desires and can market to them in a way that they can identify with.
This
is the key to improving your bottom line. Better sales copy that is
targeted to your niche will convert at a higher rate. If you product or
service is niched enough, you might even be able to charge more for it!
Would you like to learn more tips and tricks for growing and nurturing a business you love? Then visit http://www.womensbusinessgallery.com and sign up to get your copy of "StART Your Business" and gain access to a library of business building information at the Women's Business Gallery blog.
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