Sharon: Hi, this is Sharon, and I’m here today with Steven Kohnke from Denver Business Coach. Good morning, Steven.
Steven: Good morning,Sharon. How are you doing?
Sharon: I’m doing great. What are we talking about this morning?
Steven: Yeah. So as business owners, it’s helpful to think of your business as not just the service or products that happens that you deliver, but it’s really a bunch of different technical areas that need to be focused on and maintained regularly. What we’ve done here is broken down the bigger components of that, into seven different pillars of successful businesses. So foundations, leadership, sales, marketing, operations, financials and H.R. are those seven. And we’ve put together the series of tips here and insights that can be applied to build a better business. Today, we’re focusing in on that Marketing pillar. And more specifically, what is your established target market?
Sharon: So, this is a term we hear a lot in business, everyone needing to market, and I understand that businesses need to have a target market, but you use the word establish a target market. So what do you mean by that?
Steven: Yeah, that’s great. So, it’s really a complete understanding of what you do, what you’re able to solve, the problems you’re able to solve and who your business completely serves. So, you have a defined characteristics, both demographic and psychographic. You have… You can have specific case studies on how you solve this type of problem. You have unique selling propositions that are very specific and geared towards this target audience. These are all features of what an established target market is, but it’s just a very clear understanding of exactly what you do and who you serve. If you take a chiropractor, for instance, a chiropractor doesn’t always just serve everyone.
Steven: You know, there’s very specific pieces like a sports chiropractor or elderly chiropractor or accident chiropractor. You know, there’s different ways that you can define who specifically you’re serving. So it’s really just having a complete understanding of what that is.
Sharon: Ok, OK, so we’re going beyond just defining a target market. And it sounds like you’re suggesting that businesses are continuing to strive to define that. Why is that so important and why isn’t it just like a one and done? All right, I’ve got my target market. I’m good. I understand it sounds like it’s like an ongoing process.
Steven: Yeah, absolutely. You know, businesses will usually start with a very large net, very wide net and say, hey, this is what I do. You know, who can I… Whose problem can I solve and just say I’m everything to everyone. And over time, that should at the very least, narrow down. That net turns into more of a harpoon and you get very specific on what you can go after. And what that does, is it allows you to become more effective and more efficient in your marketing and the actual messaging, the channels that you use and the ways that you speak to and reach the people that you’re talking to.
Steven: You know, not understanding, on the flip side, your specific target market, it wastes time, it wastes energy and wastes money; and ultimately it can destroy your business. If you’re just throwing things against the wall and hoping that something sticks, isn’t a very good strategy anymore. It’s really you have to narrow down and understand exactly what you do and how you do it and the problems that you solve.
Sharon: All right, so let’s get into the what and how all of this what are some good ways for businesses to have an established target market or market, they may have more than one. How to go about that?
Steven: Yeah, that’s a great point. You can definitely have more than one, but it’s it’s very good to understand what is the right messaging per target audience and how do you reach that specific audience? If you have multiple target audiences, they could be hanging out in different places. And how… the kind of the first step of looking at it is if you already have a good client or customer base or the demographics and psychographics of that current base and who continues to buy from you and just getting a clear understanding of what that is, helps you narrow that down.
You know, demographics is more widely used and has been used more traditionally, but that’s not necessarily enough anymore. You need to understand the psychographic piece of it. What are the behaviors, what are their buying strategies, where do they hang out, what are their activities and try to use those types of channels in order to reach them using that sniper approach.
So, by building an avatar, that’s what we will sometimes do here, is will help our clients really create a fictional person that can represent their specific target audience. And then what that allows you to do for marketing and messaging is speak to that specific avatar.
So just in your mind, when you’re kind of coming up with creative messaging, your speech you have an audience to speak to is not just a general this demographic, this age group or, you know, this whatever you’re getting specific into it and you’re speaking to so the the messaging becomes better and better targeted. So that kind of that first step is just understanding who your current base is and then building that avatar to have that clear understanding of what they care about and how you solve their problem.
Sharon: Well, clearly, this is a big conversation, so if someone wants to find out more or have a further discussion, what’s the best way for them to do that?
Steven: Yeah, the easiest way to get a hold of us is to go to the website denverbusinesscoach.com. You can reach out to us there, schedule call, and anyone will be happy to talk to you about how to establish your target market and get more efficient and more effective at your marketing.
Sharon: Awesome, thank you, Stephen, great talking to you today.
Steven: Thank you, Sharon. See you next time.