To achieve true segment focus, managers must be able to identify and define the markets they plan to market to/with. To hone in on the segments to identify the ones that best fit their business/marketing strategy.
To do that, you must be able to answer a series of key questions, including:
- Who are the current customers that make up your market?
- Who are the future customers in that market that align with your product offering?
- Do you want more customers like them and are those customers profitable?
- What are the distinct segments in the market and how big is each segment (i.e., number of prospects, market value, and revenue expectation)?
- What is the growth rate of each segment and how much will it cost you to target each one?
- What are the major trends in each segment that make it attractive?
- Which characteristics (company size, revenue size, IT budget size, geographic location, business model, current needs, or pain points) define the buyers in each segment and how do those characteristics align with your product offering and value proposition?
- Why (based on the criteria above) is a particular segment a good fit for your business?
Answering those questions should help you boil down your target market to the customer segments that make the most sense for you to target.
Identifying your target audience is critical to your professional success
Of course, it goes without saying that you can’t just write and post content if you have not identified exactly with whom you wish to share that content. You will certainly want to gain wide exposure of your ideas but it is also (and equally) important for you to gain the right type of exposure and to provide valuable information to people with whom you can develop a long-lasting relationship that will be mutually beneficial. It is important to understand at this point that you will have to make a good amount of effort to cultivate those relationships (and other relationships as well). It may not cost you a great deal of money; however, that doesn’t mean that it won’t cost you something. It is critical to your success that you are committed to putting in the time, effort, and whatever else is required in order for you to build those relationships that are the most important for you. Also, remember, it isn’t ever about how wonderful you are. It is only about your ability to solve the other person’s problems. If you can succeed at that, the other person will become a loyal, enduring client and your relationship will certainly stand the test of time.
If you are able to focus on your target audience, in the long-run, it will save you a great deal of time, effort, and expenses. After you have been able to identify that target audience, you will continue to refine the list of audience members; however, it will be very easy to do that once you have created the initial list. Your hard work will definitely pay off over time. The reason for that is quite simple. Once you have identified your target audience, you can concentrate on satisfying the needs and wants of those people and you will no longer have to waste time with spinning your wheels in an attempt to figure out exactly who your target audience is (and should be). You will engaging people who you should be engaging.
The importance of having a well-defined target audience
If you can manage to define and successfully choose your target audience, you can successfully compete with anyone you wish. You can go up against large, medium, and small businesses no matter what size your business is. It is a matter of strategy rather than size. You are just as qualified and equipped as anyone else to see it through to the end. If you are able to do that, you can spend whatever money, time, and effort you need to spend exactly where you need to spend it and it will pay off for you. Your target audience will become loyal and they will continue to interact with you productively and successfully.
Conclusion
It is critical to the success of your business to define your target audience and subsequently to do everything in your power to cultivate that audience and to make them understand clearly how important they are to your business. In fact, without them, you couldn’t get to where you need to be.
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