Know Thy Audience and the Marketing Plan Will Follow

Step away from the keyboard, put your feet up and allow yourself 30 minutes to ponder this question:  Who is your target audience?

Seems simple, doesn't it?  Yet in my work helping clients develop a brand strategy, it seems to be the biggest sticking point.  Knowing your audience intimately is the single most important component of building an effective marketing plan. 

Many entrepreneurs have a vague notion of who they are trying to target.  Busy moms, small business owners, teenage boys.  But the more definitive and "real" you can be about your audience, the easier it will be to determine the most effective - and cost effective - way to reach them with your message.

My advice is to build out an Ideal Customer Profile.  Step down from the group demographic level and and flesh out one particular person and a day in their life.  Think about where they live, what they do for a living, what movies do they like, what books do they read - maybe even what food do they eat.  Do they shop online or go to stores?  Do they manage people at work, or are they someone's assistant?  Do they drive to work or take public transportation? Are they married or do they go out on dates? The more real you can make your ideal customer, the more you can start to see what methods of communication will and won't work.

Recently, I've been working with a client who is a small insurance provider.  His target client initally was "someone who owns a stake in their own business."  Seems fair enough.  Entrepreneurs, right?  Well...

Upon digging deeper, we discovered it's not all entrepreneurs, just those in professional services firms: attorneys, accountants, physicians.  Whew!  Our universe of prospects just got a lot more focused, didn't it?  And then we got into the fact that we were targeting Jane Smith, an successful attorney in her late 40's with 2 kids and a dual income household.  She likes to attend the theatre and is very involved in community and charitable work.  She drives her Lexus to work in Bellevue every day and listens to NPR. Her kids are not yet in college, but she wants to financially support them in going.  Her family takes two vacations a year, normally engaged in adventure activities like skiing or paragliding. And she likes to jog so she tends to download business podcasts for her runs.

We also fleshed out her personality.  She is a planner and already has a robust retirement plan.  She's proactive and thinks ahead and wants to ensure her family is safe should something happen to her.

Now that we know Jane initimately and see what she does during the day, we can better decide the best way to reach more Jane's and gain more clients.  When my client first came to me, he thought, "I need to do local TV ads."  But now in fleshing out Jane, we see that she doesn't have time to watch TV, so that would be wasted money.  A better approach might be ads in local business journals, or joining a local community organization or club where he can network face to face with these individuals.  And since we have decided she listens to NPR, maybe ads during the morning commute might be effective.

The point is, once you really bring your audience to life, you start to see the places where they might hear your message.  So spend some time really conjuring up that ideal customer in as much detail as possible.  You will find that some surprising marketing ideas will flourish (hey, why don't we sponsor that local charity auction she's involved in?) as well as you will get a better sense of how to craft your messaging and look and feel to attract more Janes as new customers.