Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Find Your Target Market! Tips To Locating Your Ideal Client

By Alice Seba

Not knowing the type of person that would be interested in your product or services can drastically reduce your chances of succeeding. If you do not understand or know the person, how can you sell to them?

Here's news for you, that's going to be one difficult task until you have researched as to who exactly your target market is, and what it is they need. Okay, so what steps they take to discover the type of person who will readily buy what you have to offer? You'll have to continue reading to discover tips that will help you grow your online empire by simply getting to know your customer.

Communicate With Your Current Clients

The first thing you can do, if you already have paying customers, is find out what they really are all about. Determine what they want and need from you. There are many ways to do this. A few of which include:

Design a survey and request their ideas or opinions on your previous products or services they purchased.

Do Your Research... Even if You Haven't Sold Anything Before

Research Can Still be Completed, Even if You Haven't Made Any Previous Sales

What research process do you use, if you have never sold a product before, and you have no list to speak of? In order to discover who exactly your target clients is, jot down all of your products benefits (not features). Brainstorm a list of things that your service or product does for people. Examples of this would be "makes them more money", "gives them more spent time" etc. etc. Also focus on how your product will fix any problems your client may be facing. What is it that you can do to help your buyer, that would help their lives become easier or higher quality?

After you have discovered a few ideas, think about who these benefits would appeal to. For example, if you sold a contraption that would make a client's car go faster, the target market that you'd be aiming at would probably be car owners in their lower 20s. Discovering the many benefits your product or service has to offer will enable you to specifically target certain groups of customer who will be interested in what you have to offer. It is possible you may find that you have more than one target market. This is acceptable, and can make things more profitable -- especially with online marketing. Because of this, specific advertising and creating separate websites for each of your target markets becomes easy and did not too expensive.

Finding Out What's Already Out There

Using keyword research is a very effective technique to study your market place. Other methods include looking at material dedicated to your niche, including magazines, discussion groups, social network sites and clubs with common interests. Visit other websites that are at the top of their game, and find out what they are selling the most of. Your competitors can help you too, by showing you their most popular items.

No matter how you come up with your target market, remember to take the time to put yourself in your potential customer's shoes. Whether you're just starting out with a new product or are making changes to your existing service, don't be afraid to talk to people out there to find out just exactly who the target market for your online business really is.

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