It’s the question every entrepreneur faces right after deciding what kind of business to launch: whom shall I serve? Good marketing requires specificity so that your ideal client will realize you’re speaking to her or him. But it can be a challenging process to identify specifically the audience you want to serve, and even more difficult to create an avatar that encapsulates your ideal client. Whether it’s because of your own lack of clarity or fear about getting too specific, you may hesitate to draw a narrow client niche. Join Jory and Julie to learn why a narrow target audience description is actually critical to business success, what you should consider in creating that description and a client avatar, and how frequently you should revisit your audience definition. We’ll share our mistakes and revelations as well as why we continue to revisit target market, and we’ll also explore the difference between the audience you serve and the audience to whom you market.
About Julie Fleming
Julie A. Fleming, principal of Lex Innova Consulting, helps lawyers and other service professionals to create and implement innovative business development plans. She is the author of three books as well as numerous articles on topics such as business development, practice management, work/life balance, and leadership development. You can find out more about Julie at Lex Innova Consulting.
Julie’s Success Tips
- Identify your target market in terms of demographics and psychographics, and aim for a narrowly-drawn group.
- Create an avatar of your ideal client, and direct all of your marketing to that person. You’ll alienate some people who aren’t your ideal client, but your message will be a beacon to the people you seek to serve.
- Revisit your target audience description on a regular basis. This isn’t a one-and-done task.
Julie’s Quote of the Day
“Nothing can add more power to your life than concentrating all your energies on a limited set of targets.” Nido Qubein (Businessman, author, speaker, President of High Point University)
Jory’s Success Tips
- Interview and/or survey friends and colleagues who represent the group you feel drawn to work with. Discover their hopes, their dreams, their challenges, their struggles and design your programs, products, and marketing around their responses.
- Declaring a target market doesn’t mean you can’t work with other groups of people!!
Jory’s Quote of the Day
“Everyone is not your customer.” ~Seth Godin
Listen to Jory and Julie by clicking the audio player below.
Click to view and download transcript [PDF]
Piano music by David Nevue.
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