Selecting the Right Marketing Tactic for Your Audience

Business, Marketing Diary
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If you grow oranges who are you selling to? The people who want to drink orange juice? The manufacturer who mass produces orange juice? The grocery store that sells oranges? The bakery that specializes in orange marmalade cupcakes?

Knowing who your audience is can be the difference between success and failure. You are building an online brand. Part of the process is identifying who you want to speak to. Whether you’re a blogger, service provider or consultant, your ideal client will tell you how to best reach them.

You can’t be effective in marketing without knowing who you are targeting. It sounds simple but it’s not. You see, your demographic is different from mines. Even though we may be addressing the same people, how we position our brands is what sets up apart. That’s what makes you different.

Here’s how you can identify your ideal target market.

Who do you WANT to work with?

Some may say to find an audience that’s being overlooked or underserved. I don’t think this is the best way to approach it. Why? Because what if the “best” demographic aren’t the ones you want to work with? Will you be happy working with a client who’s not the kind of client that you want to work with? If you’re not happy, will you do your best work?

Sometimes, it’s ok to make it about you. If you don’t then why will your client want to work with you over someone else? You’re choosing to be a blogger or service provider or consultant. By simply choosing this path for yourself, you’ve already taken the leap into “I want” territory. When you’re identifying your ideal client or audience, don’t lose sight on that. At this point it’s not about them, it’s about you.

How do you WANT to work with them?

Now that you know the “who”, it’s time to pinpoint the how. Because this is your life, it’s up to you to define the terms upon which you want to live by. How you execute your brand is entirely up to you and your imagination. If you want to work virtually from an Alaskan igloo, more power to you. If you want to work remotely from a beach house on Puerto Rico then call me so we can do brunch!

You have to be comfortable setting the terms for how you want to craft your brand. Forget what you “should” do. If you are going to be thinking about “shoulds” then what you “should” do is the safe thing which is most likely not what you’re doing now. Today I’m giving you permission to be selfish. Act as if anything were possible and put your state of mind in that realm of possibilities.

Once you have your ideal target market, you have to ask a few key questions.

• Where do they hang out? I’m not talking just about Facebook.
• What do they like to do?
• What are their hobbies?
• How would they like to spend their weekends?

Envision who they are and create a profile. If it helps, visit iStockphoto.com and look at some stock photos. Type in keywords that are descriptive of who they are. Suburban busy mom, friendly professional woman, etc. It might be useful to get a visual on them, as you’re crafting this profile.

The reason why you are doing this profile is so that you can start manifesting them for your brand. Think of it like a geeky modern version of Weird Science, only without the barbie doll and pinup magazine and illegal house party.

By this point you should know who you want to work with and how you want to work with them. Now let’s identify the best marketing tactics so that you’re best able to reach them in a meaningful way.

Susie is a freelance life coach, who blogs about wellness and fashion. She loves working with clients to clear their mental junk so that they can be their most fabulous self. Her ideal client is a woman in her mid20s who’s in the process of figuring out what they want do. They like hanging out with their girlfriends, often times for brunch on weekends.

Susie also works well with recent college graduates in major metropolitan cities such as Chicago, Los Angeles and New York City. On her spare time, she finds shopping deals and shares them with her blog readers. Susie is rooted in this philosophy that when you feel good about how you look, you have a better clarity into who you want to become.

She offers in-person and phone coaching sessions. She also distributes a weekly newsletter to her clients with affirmations and accountability tasks.

Susie knows who she wants to work with and how.

Marketing tactics that would work well for her include:

• Reach out to college career centers. Create a guide specifically for them such as “5 things to consider as you graduate into the real world.”
• Connect with sororities. Foster a relationship with them and tap into their national network.
• Partner with a local boutique and offer a 30 minute seminar/session about how certain wardrobe choices can bolster self-esteem.
• Customize a laptop cover with your information and dedicate at least 2 hours per week to work at a Starbucks, or local cafe, that is located near your town’s fashion district.
• Host a meetup for bloggers who write for stylish college graduates in flux.

These are just a few suggestions to show how selecting the right marketing tactics is contingent upon knowing what you want to do, how you want to do it and for whom. At the end of the day, it’s up to you to decide the kind of relationship you want to build with the people you want to engage your brand with.

Once you know the “who” and “how”, you’re well on your way to selling the “why.”

Redefining Your Brand in a Saturated World

Business, Marketing Diary
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It’s increasingly difficult to stand apart from the crowd, so how do you do it?

Ideas are a dime a dozen. To hang your hat on something “unique” may not be the best approach. After all, how unique is an idea?

Concepts are not that special, by themselves. What gives them their mojo are the people who execute on them. I’m not the only web designer, marketing strategist or business coach out there. So what makes what I do stand out? For me, I use my personality and I integrate it into everything I do.

• I’m snarky.
• I like to give people information.
• I’m optimistic.
• I love options.

So I take these aspects of who I am and I create a brand around these core values. I package it with the services I offer so that I attract clients who want to leverage their online brands in a fun and engaging way. My style is not for everyone and I’ve accepted that.

When redefining your market, these are the things to consider.

What distinguishes you apart from others?

Take inventory of your personality and style. What do your friends know you for? Are you organized? Are you outgoing? These personality traits are key selling points for when you’re positioning yourself among your competitors. Take a minute to look at your space.

Who’s doing what you’re doing?

If you’re a blogger, scoop out some other bloggers. There’s only so many times one can blog about fashion and relationships and most readers aren’t reading because your content is ground-breaking. They’re invested in you, the person, the voice behind the site.

Execution is key.

Take a minute to take stock of how you do what you do. Could you be doing it differently? If you are service provider, could you do something other than in-person sessions? Diversifying how you deliver the goods can help make you seem “different” in a game where everyone’s essentially the same.

With a out-of-the-box approach to executing your blog, services, products, etc – you could end up defining a brand new market. Some ideas include:

• A life coach who offers daily affirmation delivered via email. That’s 365 positive quotes, pre-scheduled on an auto-responder.
• A blogger who offers weekly advice (fashion, makeup, relationship, marketing tips) via a paid newsletter, priced at $5 a month.
• A writer who  breaks up their book into a membership website, where readers login to a dedicated area, so they can get a full immersive experience.

Own it.

Part of defining your brand is owning the audience that you’re speaking to. This is the hard part because reality sinks in and you may find that your core audience is smaller than you anticipated. Gone are the days of appealing to everyone. It just doesn’t work anymore, not that it worked all too well back then.

Owning your market takes a commitment to respecting their needs and responding to them.

• If you’re a blogger, who are you talking to?
• If you provide services, do they want what you’re offering?
• If you sell merchandise, why should they buy your products?

Step outside of your comfort zone and have a heart to heart with yourself. If you’re happy with the answers, then maybe you should revisit the drawing board and work backwards.

• Instead of asking who you are talking to, ask who do you want to talk to.
• Instead of asking if your clients want what you’re offering, ask what do they want.
• Instead of asking why should someone buy from you, ask what do they want to buy.

Whichever questions you end up asking, make sure the answers are aligned with your own interest. There’s no point in building a brand based on something that is not your passion. For that, you might as well go back to a cubicle job!

Flickr photo source: SteveD.