Audience

Understanding Your Target Market

(Hint: They aren’t you.)

It is a principal of marketing that in order to be effective, you must understand the characteristics and demographics of your market. And that means knowing more than their name, rank and serial number. You also have to know what motivates them, identify their pain points and be clear as to why they should buy from you. Otherwise you will not be able to present your product or service in a way that will mean anything to them.

Every organization, large or small, needs to understand what its value is from the customer’s point of view. The first step is to understand that you are not your customer.

But I am like my customer, you say. We like the same things and have the same needs —- that’s what I’ve based my business on. What appeals to me is what will appeal to them. We’re on the same wave length!

Well, surprise —- you’re not them. What they value about your business is not what you value about it. The biggest difference: you want to make a living from it and they want to solve their problem. Those two points of view are very different. Example: you want to sell Russian nesting dolls and they want to find a unique gift for Aunt Martha. It’s up to you to find the connection between these two unrelated problems and make a compelling case for it. Your customer is not going to get there on her own.

One simple way to figure this out is to pretend you are the customer and observe your business from his/her viewpoint.

All too often, when you read a business’s ad or brochure or web site, the messages are entirely about how great they are and not about how they can solve the customer’s problem. We’ve all had the experience of going to a web site to find answers to a particular dilemma, only to be confronted by a wall of self-congratulatory text that must be slogged through to find any answers.

It is essential to get into the customers’ mind-set and out of your own. This is hard when you’re immersed in all the day-to-day details of running a business, but well worth the effort. In customer mode, you’ll be able to see your business strategy more clearly. Pretending to be your customer will help you identify the problems and build on the strengths.

Understanding how people experience your enterprise is a matter of business survival. Since we tend to become blind to what’s constantly around us, the trick is to cultivate fresh eyes and ears so you can understand how your customer perceives your product or service. It’s a free source of important information.

Positioning: RX for Your Identity Crisis

Have you ever had a prospect ask,

“What do you do?”

There are few questions that will send us into deer-in-the-headlights stuttering as fast. When it happens, we resolve to Do Something About It. But figuring out a short, compelling way to explain your value as a business is HARD. So it gets shelved until the next time it happens and another identity crisis shakes your world.

The antidote: Positioning.

Positioning is the strategy you use to develop your brand. As my faithful readers know, your brand is what your market thinks of you, based on all the experiences they have had with your organization. The crucial difference: Positioning is something that you do proactively so that your brand will be perceived the way you want. Positioning tells your customers what they should think about you, instead of waiting for the effect of brand experience to kick in.

When you position proactively, you give yourself a big advantage. To get started, you need to decide how to complete these four statements:

1 .This is what I offer:
2. This is whom I can best serve:
3. This is why I’m different:
4. This is why that difference matters to my target market:

Your statements must be clear and specific no matter what type of business or organization you have. They will help you understand your value from your buyer’s perspective so you can explain it to your prospects effectively. When you are clear about your purpose, your market, your difference and your value, those recurring identity crises become history.

For example, if you’re in retail, you need to explain why people should buy shoes from you and not Macy’s. If you are a lawyer, you need to be able to say why clients should hire you to do their estate planning and not the firm their cousin recommended. If you do economic development, you have to show why a business should locate in your community and not down the road.

Once you have your four positioning statements, you will have the basis for an effective response to “What do you do?” You will also have the answer to their next questions (spoken or unspoken) which are “What’s in it for me?” and “So what?” These are the most important questions that an effective marketing plan must answer.

Going through this exercise for my design and marketing business was eye-opening. I realized I could not answer the four questions adequately on my own, so I sought guidance from three awesome marketing colleagues whose work I respect and who understood my work and my market. They were also willing to point out when I was deluding myself or going down an unproductive path.

When you tackle these critical questions, be sure to engage the help of a feedback provider who is objective. You could start by consulting with your partner, trusted colleagues or favorite clients. And if you’re not convinced that your positioning is clear, it may be time to work with a marketing professional. I know how valuable the results are, yet how hard this process can be. I would love to help. Contact me either by phone (360-457-0217) or by email if you’d like to explore the answers together.

The Top Marketing Must-Have: A Clear Message

Why? Because confused people don’t buy, and in an economy like this one, scared people don’t take chances. You can’t assume that if your message is clear to you, that it will be clear to your customers.

People don’t read minds or between the lines, especially when they’re more nervous than usual about parting with their money. Their tendency is to play it safe and be really literal, so your customers need to be told clearly what’s in it for them from their point of view.

And your message has to be delivered in a user-friendly way. An illegible store sign, a web site with confusing navigation, a display ad with tons of tiny type too small to read – these things are all too common and destroy the ability of the sign, ad or web site to communicate. If your message is not clear, your market will be confused, and (again) confused people don’t buy.

As the economy improves and your competition heats up, being clear will become even more crucial as everyone jockeys for market share and adjusts to the new playing field.

Your marketing materials deliver your messages when you aren’t on hand to explain what your business has to offer. If the messages are confusing, unprofessional or inconsistent, people will assume that your business is too, since they will have nothing else on which to base a judgment.

So here’s my message (and I hope it’s crystal clear): Explain the advantage to your customers from their point of view. Make this message consistent throughout out all your marketing. Do all you can to ensure that the message sent is the message received. Your market will thank you!

Audience

(Hint: They aren’t you.)

Have you ever had a prospect ask,

“What do you do?”

Think your logo needs a do-over?