You may have wondered from time to time with your marketing, “WHY” don’t more people buy what I have to offer? You might have seen or heard of a marketing campaign that has been so successful and then you virtually copied that campaign (barring a few tweaks) to suit your  marketplace and it completely bombed out for you.

WHY?

Well the problem in my professional opinion (and experience) is the fact that about 92% of marketers “Don’t Target” the correct audience!

They go out there and do blanket marketing campaigns in newspapers, radios, networking groups, flyer drops, and the like and Try And CONVINCE everyone and anyone in business that they need what they have, or even worse, create a targeted ad piece and then put it out into a general audience.

Of course, we know that an approach such as this is going to be a big, fat disaster don’t we?

Then WHY does 92% of websites out there insist on copywriting a homepage that focuses on the general population?

What I’m talking about here is those sites that talk about themselves, rather than focussing on “The PROBLEMS They Solve!” and what you need to really absorb is...

Not Everyone wants your product or service!

You might be convinced that everyone needs your product, but whether or not they want it, is completely another issue. Why then, does the prospect who looks at your product, seems interested, gives you all the right signals, then go and buy the exact same thing (or an inferior product / service) to what you could have given them?

It’s called TARGETING!

The competitor product or service was in a position that was more clearly identified by that target market as something “Useful” to them, they were attracted to that product  or service because of the way it was described, positioned and presented... And yours WASN’T!

Now this can be quite a sour pill to swallow, but the sooner you realize that everyone doesn’t want your product or service, and begin to focus on the target group who DOES, you’re business is going to be much better off.

If at this point, you don’t quite know WHO your exact target market is, then you have some research to do and you’d better do it quick because every-single-day you delay, your more aggressive and pro-active competitors are doing these nitty gritty things, learning more and more about their target market and heaven forbid if your target market is theirs, because they’ll have the upper hand.

The one thing I’ve learned from the most successful companies out there is they NEVER stop their quest for a deeper understanding of their target audience so they can fulfil their needs better than anyone else.

So my advice to you, if you find yourself in this position is to STOP trying to convince everyone that they need your products / services and begin honing in on the ones who WANT them, are LOOKING for them and BELIEVE they need them... Your life will be tremendously easier!

Try thinking about how good it was when you dealt with a “PERFECT” client, you know the ones I’m talking about, they paid you upfront or right on time, they didn’t complain, they wanted what you had, were easy to work with and referred a bunch of their colleagues, friends and family to you who were exactly the same as they were “EASY to deal with!”

I want you to FEEL what that experience is like for 10 minutes, really reflect on it.

Now do the same for a client that you really had to work HARD to convince to buy your product or service, then when you finally got them out of their own way, their scepticism died down enough to persuade them, they were a NIGHTMARE client. They didn’t have the money to pay you on time, they wanted you to drop everything and do theirs first, ABOVE AND BEYOND your well paying clients.

Now how does that make you feel and react? And how do we get away from this scenario so it’s NEVER repeated again?

Here are some ideas you can run through to help you target and position yourself a little more clearly for your perfect “A Plus” client.

1. Think about the qualities of your perfect customer and re-write your materials to them only.
2. What sort of resources does your perfect target marketing focus on? Then get your articles, ads
     and materials in those resources as best you can.
3. What age are your perfect clients?
4. What are their hobbies? What do they do in their spare time?
5. How do they dress? Are they highly formal or quite casual?
6. What is their level of education? High school, Uni Degrees or higher?
7. What sex are they?
8. What are they after in life in general? What do they want out of life?
9. What are their biggest concerns, fears, worries, what keeps them awake at night?
10. What is the big benefit they get, and the problem they SOLVE if they work with you?

You MUST be as specific as possible in answering these questions and go back over them over and over. The whole idea of this process is to be “Exclusive” to your target market only, the non-targeted clients you exclude have no problem excluding you from their buying processes so now is the time to be razor sharp with your targeting radar.

Online, the more niche you are, the better it will work for you. For example, you might sell cars and have a general website of all the cars you have, this is your “TYPICAL” everyone type scenario.

The alternate route would be, have many specific pages with groupings of the cars to each specific area, this will make your clients “FEEL SPECIAL” to begin with and it will attract them to the page that suits them, like a magnet. For example, you might have a group of cars that are suitable for students on a very tight budget, then you would have a page on your site that says “Cars for Students” and so on for each “NICHE” you have...

No-one does this, it’s too logical and obvious and it’s costing them thousands in lost sales to competitors because of it.

That’s my rant for day, somewhat brutal I know, but it’s reality for a lot of readers and I’ve just given you the start of how to solve it.

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