In previous posts I’ve discussed why you can’t sell to absolutely everyone and how you need to find your dream customer, the best target group or groups to focus on. But how do we define those target groups? The classic way is to define them by demographical and geographical things like age, gender, income brackets, education level etc. In some cases, this is very relevant. In others, it doesn’t matter whatsoever! Whether demographics or location is relevant in your case or not, you are always going to have to drill down and find out more. You have to get to know these people like your best … [Read more...]
You Can’t Sell To Everybody: Find Your Target Group
When asked about their target group, many business owners say they sell to everybody. And it’s understandable. Who doesn’t want as many people as possible buying their products or services. I can totally relate. Sometimes you just want to stand there on the town square and shout to the world about what you are doing. Here’s the problem though. It’s never going to work. Why? … [Read more...]
Don’t Be An Ass – You Need To Do Market Research!
I woke from a bad dream the other day. I was working with a large group of people and suddenly I realised that they were just making up things about their target groups, rather than having any real information. And it reminded me of something I have always known, but one tends to forget. None of us can read minds! (If I am wrong, and you can, please get in touch because I really really really want to talk to you! :) Not only did I assume that they knew they had to do some research to get to know more about their target groups - and thereby assumed they could read my mind - they also assumed … [Read more...]
Get Your Customers to Get You Even More Business!
We all know that it's great when our customers are happy and spread the word, as I have discussed in other posts. However, we tend to just cross our fingers and hope for the best, rather than taking matters into our own hands to increase the chances of them referring more business to us. What, if anything, can we do? Be Great! You have to be worth people telling others about you. People will not refer others to boring businesses, or "just ok" businesses. They will however recommend businesses they think is great. So to start off with, you have to have a great product or service, but you also … [Read more...]
Your Most Powerful Marketing Question?
We all know that it's great to have happy customers that tell others about us. Those that hear about us this way are much more likely than others to do business with us, and sooner, than those that hear about us through other ways. We also know that referrals are one of the most powerful marketing tools out there, and can cover the marketing process and get the sale, even without anything else coming into play. All businesses, products and services can benefit from referrals in some way, but the general rule seems to be that the more expensive the purchase or the more personal the service, … [Read more...]