Irrespective of how great your product or service offering is, as an entrepreneur you would be remiss if the right people don’t know about it. You know, the ones who will pay.
Businesses relying solely on the strength of their service offerings and existing customers are missing the point. Sure, they’re striving to stay ahead of the learning curve while trying to reinvent themselves. The challenge is a good chunk of a business’ reinvention strategy is self-fulfilling and has little to do with the audience they intend to serve.
Nothing beats the pain of evaluating the key customers and the market they’re in. If knowing yourself as a business is step 1. Knowing your customers is step 2.
I think not investing time to profile your customers is a recipe for disaster. It’s akin to casting a wider net. And it’s highly inefficient. Picture logging into your LinkedIn account and searching for your ideal client. Where do you start?
Just the sheer chase will be an exhaustive exercise. You can’t target everyone! The more specific you are, the more focused your approach will be.
If you like to work with your existing customers, that’s great! But you have to do more than just that. Getting down to the specifics is critical at this juncture.
Moreover, remember that your potential clients have more options than ever!
This INC.com guide sums up the process for defining your target market well. Besides the obvious, I think knowing your target market and the ideal customer will help businesses create:
- better proposals
- content that truly resonates with the audience’s needs
- better opportunities to partner with your customers
The formula is pretty straightforward: Identify your market. Build an audience. Offer a service.