Is Your Marketing Message Targeted and Powerful?
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For your marketing message to be really powerful and effective, it needs to be very targeted and specific. You’ll want to define who the ideal prospects are who could most benefit from your products and services, and include that in your message. You’ll also want to really understand their most pressing issues and challenges so that you can demonstrate that you provide targeted solutions to their problems.
Here are three steps you can take to target your marketing message more specifically:
1. Define your target market
When you started your business and wrote your business plan, you spent some time defining your target market. Now is the time to be really clear about who this target group is that you want to attract. Define who they are, where they work, where they live, what they read, how old they are, what groups they belong to, what magazines they read, and how much they earn. Be as specific as possible.
2. Create a profile of your ideal client
It’s helpful to imagine your message will attract one specific person. Be clear on their specific characteristics, key challenges, problems, frustrations, desires and needs. For example, a professional service provider specializing in career transition might market directly to a female executive age 45 who lives in New York, earns $150,000 or more a year, is on the verge of burnout, wants out of her job, and is looking for solutions to manage stress or leave her job, belongs to the local executive women’s network, and reads Executive Women Magazine. You get the idea. You need to be very clear and specific about who your ideal prospect is. Have this profile handy whenever you write a talk, an article or a blog post so that you can write or speak directly to that person using words that will appeal specifically to them.
3. Understand the problems and challenges in your niche market
Get to know the people in your defined market. Attend networking events, workshops and conferences. Go online to social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, go to blogs, forums, and groups like Google groups or Yahoo groups that have interactive mailing lists. Do some market research. Find out about their greatest needs and challenges, their most pressing problems, and their biggest frustrations. If you don’t know, ask them for feedback by email or phone, take them to lunch, or conduct a survey.
Do these three things so that your message will carry more impact and will resonate with the specific clients you most want to attract. Incorporate your research into all of your marketing messages so that they will be more targeted and powerful.
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Copyright © Jan Marie Dore ~ www.femalepreneurs.com ~ All rights reserved.
Jan Marie Dore, ‘The Professional Women’s Success Coach’, Master Certified Coach, Speaker, and Author, publishes valuable ideas to grow a professional service business and increase profitability in her newsletter ‘Success Secrets for Solo-Professional Women’.Jan Marie teaches self-employed female professionals to attract more clients and financial success, and as a result, live extraordinary lives. For free resources and programs on marketing a professional practice please visit Femalepreneurs.com and read the Blog Prosperous Professional Women
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Jan Marie Dore is passionate about empowering women entrepreneurs to get their message out to wider audiences and reach new levels of success, fulfillment and profits in their business. Her clients are women around the world who have a talent, passion, service or expertise they want to share to make a difference in people’s lives. 
Conducting market research. That statement in and of itself is intimidating, but why is it so intimidating?
Maybe because many of us don’t even really know what it means. Maybe because we have no idea where to start. Do we look at how many similar businesses are in the area?… How many people are there who will buy our product or service?… What is market research, what should I be looking for and what do I do with it if I can find it?
We need to make it simple and make the connection between the information needed for the decision to be made.
Defining and sticking to your target market is so important! You can’t try to be everything to everyone. I recently made that mistake in my business and it showed! So don’t only define the market but make sure you stay on track with it. Just because someone who isnt in your target starts making suggestions how to better suit them doesnt mean you should.
Great comments Jared & David!
Thanks for sharing your insights.
Jan Marie, I think your advice is spot on!
It seems so simple, yet there’s that pull of “I want to help everyone,” or “I don’t want to limit who I work with,” or “What if my target market is too narrow?” It can really take some guts to clearly define a target market and stick to it!
Clearly defining the points you mention are the keys to creating a sales cycle of offerings that lead to revenue/profits. Offerings of various levels of content and price points meet the potential client where he or she is at, and builds trust and credibility.
But it all starts with knowing who you serve, where to find that person, what he/she needs, and then creating a conversation that leads to your sales cycle.
Hi Amy,
You’re right. Many people want to help everyone. Helping professionals in particular have that desire to help all people. Targeting your marketing is just one way to refine your message to who you can help the most. Other people will still find you and be attracted to your message.
I like your suggestion about creating a conversation around someone’s needs. That’s what it’s all about!