Having a large customer base thru great sales is the ultimate target of any firm. There are many factors that comprise sales success, such as competitive pricing, near perfect product, reaching out and targeting to the correct audience and motivational advertising, and should be dealt with in marketing.
First things first: This is an extremely important point to understand and implement before you start you marketing efforts. All of your efforts will be a complete waste of time and money if the correct audience is not recognized and specifically targeted. It is the major factor in getting abundant sales, because IF the right customers aren’t targeted, then the right customers won’t buy the product. The right customers are known as targeted customers or your niche market; those who are actively searching for and will be very happy to buy the products that fulfill their needs.
Small business owners shouldn’t fear competition with large companies as they produce products geared towards a bigger spectrum. No matter! Sometimes the bigger companies won’t be customer specific as their products are more generalized and they don’t much care about the competition they might get from others. Like You! This gives an opportunity to the smaller firms to produce products, which they can cater to the needs of a group of people whose needs aren’t met specifically by the large companies.
Although it seems like a silly question, but firstly, a firm should understand who the people are they want to target. The success lies behind understanding this, which requires thorough research and analysis. Various factors must be considered. The age group is the first factor, whether the product will be useful to babies or children or teenagers or youngsters or middle aged or old. Sometimes there is a possibility that the product will cater to the needs of all age groups. The next thing to consider is gender. Marital status, occupation, ethnic background, health status, income status, education, hobbies, etc., are some of the factors that should also be pondered upon.
After deciding on the customer group to be targeted, the benefits that can be provided by the product to this group should be jotted down. A thorough examination of the service or product should be done for this purpose. If there is sufficient time, a survey can be conducted on the current customers and pose them with questions like what they liked in the products they are using, any discomfort they are facing, do they want anything to be changed to make the product better, etc.
After making a list of all the benefits, thought should be applied to which of these benefits will actually help the targeted audience. Make a short list of the benefits that will be advantageous as it will definitely help in your marketing plan and can boost sales.
The Internet has made reaching out to the targeted customers very, very easy. Search engines can be utilized to the maximum extent for this purpose. Type your keyword or search phrase that you are exactly searching for in the search engines and the results that are brought back on the first three pages will be of enormous value. But lots of time and investment is involved in this process, as different keywords will fetch different search results. So be prepared to spend some time and energy culling out the results to finally get what you are looking for.
Another option for you here is Facebook Advertising. I personally use this tool constantly to run ad campaigns. Take a small tutorial on how to create an ad here, as you will be amazed on how specifically targeted they can make your campaign. I am truly astonished at every campaign I create for my business, as I can keep drilling down to get more and more targeted audiences for what I am selling.
Next best thing is reaching out to newsletters, blogs and e-zines. Many e-zines are related to marketing, finance, shopping, Internet, etc. A number of e-zine websites can be found in an e-zines directory, which even contains the contact information, advertising price, etc. The list of e-zine website sites should be cut down to which are relating to the target market and ad should be placed in the ones selected which should include all the product advantages if the ad allows that many words.
In conclusion…Recognizing the target market is crucial to any successful advertising and sales campaign. Once it is recognized, they can be reached through different channels like websites, newspapers, magazines, etc. This makes the customer think that he is being directly addressed to. And since the whole approach will interest them, the amount of traffic received in return will be simply overwhelming and the whole effort will be worth it.
About The Author:
John Montana has been a successful salesman since 1990. He currently lives with his wife and travels between Chicago and Los Angeles. He created his site – ABMSNOW to offer tips and small business ideas on how to become better at selling and business management…no matter what your product is.
