It might be logical to think that the bigger the number of people you target with your marketing, the more likely you are to attract more customers and achieve success. But in fact, the opposite is true.
In this episode, discover how to attract more customers to your business with a smaller playing field, what the consequences are when you keep marketing to a broad audience, and the benefits when you get it right.
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Patty Palmer from Deep Space Sparkle
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Podcast Transcript
It might be logical to think that the bigger the number of people you target with your marketing, the more likely you are to attract more customers and achieve success. But in fact, the opposite is true. Stay tuned and discover what you can do to attract more from less.
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Simply Standout Marketing podcast, I’m Nicci O’Mara your host, I’m excited to be back talking with you today about your customers and clients and more importantly, how to attract more by targeting less.
One of the first questions I ask my clients when we start working together is, who is your audience? Give me the specifics.
What I often get back in reply is something along the lines of “they’re working women and men between the ages of 25 and 65 who live in the local area. Or it could be they are tradespeople, or parents, or local business owners from our town.”
The problem with marketing like this to a broad audience is that you can’t be all things to all people. You can’t connect with a teenage girl with the same marketing message as you’d use for a 30 year old woman, 50 year old or even a 70 year old woman. They all have different values. They have different problems, and they even speak a different language.
You might be launching your new work shirts, but targeting 20 year old tradies, farmhands and miners with the same marketing as, say, their 50 year old bosses won’t work as effectively than if you actually got specific with your marketing. Think about it. The 20 year olds have different problems. They have different priorities -how they spend their money, they might hang out on Tick-Tock and Netflix, not on Facebook and free to air TV. They’re looking for something that makes them look good first rather than the practicalities.
Say you’re a photographer and your audience could be just about anyone who values beautiful photos of their loved ones. But how much easier would it be if your marketing targeted just one audience? It could be pet owners with no children who love their pets more than life itself. Or it could be new parents, real estate agents, brides, online entrepreneurs or even families. The more specific you can get, the better, because all of those niches can actually provide enough money for everyone.
The consequences of marketing to everyone is that you actually market to no one in particular. It’s like trying to be everyone’s best friend in grade two and the only way you can do it is to try to be more like them. So you have to keep changing how you talk, what you talk about, and also how you act.
Now as businesses, you absolutely don’t want to be that kid in grade two. You absolutely don’t want to be trying to fit in. You’re actually trying to stand out.
Think about your buying habits. You don’t want to buy the same swimwear as your parents, just as your teenage daughter doesn’t want to be seen dead buying from the same place as mum or dad. And you no doubt have different expectations of a plumber than, say, the 20 year old guy who lives down the road.
Even consider the difference in coffee buying habits. As a working mother, I’m looking for amazing tasting coffee that comes really fast and preferably, during the week, without having to get out of the car. While others will be looking for a funky cafe. Others will be looking for luxury, others for cheap and cheerful or laid back or even child friendly. They’re all still looking for coffee shops and to drink coffee or tea. But people are trying to find their coffee shop.
The other reason you don’t want to go with the misconception of the more people the better, is because, you know, those annoying clients or customers you have to deal with who complain about the cost, no matter how small it is, they complain about the food or the service or the end result, even when it’s amazing. They complain when you won’t answer their call at nine o’clock on a Sunday night. They’re the customers you don’t want because they’re the customers you get more of when you market to everyone. The less of these people in our lives, the better as far as I’m concerned.
And this problem can usually be dealt with by attracting your ideal customers with the messaging, with offers and the images that set the right expectations and attract your kind of people. Sadly, I’m sorry to say, but it’s not a 100 percent foolproof method of getting rid of the clients and customers we all hate. But it goes a long way to helping.
So we’ve discussed the reasons why it’s far less effective to market to a broad audience, but let’s look at it from the point of view of what the benefits can be to your business, if you get specific and focus your marketing on your ideal customer. First up, selling your product or your service can be so much easier and conversion much faster when you’ve actually defined your niche and you’re attracting the right people.
If you can get specific with who your audience is, their values, their language, what they lie in bed awake at night worrying about, it’s going to make selling a breeze because the more you can refine who your target audience is, the better you can get to know them, the easier it is to connect and engage with them. And then selling becomes super simple.
Now, some of my favourite businesses who do this really well, are Patti Palmer, who successfully sells art lessons to busy primary school teachers or primary school art teachers online in the US. Bec Sparrow’s one of my favourite. She helps teen and tween girls have a better experience at high school. I don’t even have girls. I’m an all boy, Mum, and I still love following Bec for her advice. And the software Canva which was founded by Australian woman Melanie Perkins in 2012 and has made graphic design easy and accessible to entrepreneurs and influencers.
Now, I’m hoping that you’ve got a better understanding of the consequences of targeting your marketing to a broad audience now and the amazing benefits that can come with getting really specific on who your ideal client or customer is. But of course, nothing is going to change if you don’t take action on it.
So if you want to improve your attraction rates, you might need to just get a little bit uncomfortable or a lot uncomfortable and take a good, hard look at who you’re currently targeting with your marketing, to see whether you can get more specific and narrow down who you want as your ideal client or customer.
Are they mothers of teenage boys needing nutrition advice, small business owners struggling with their tech, or maybe they’re families who just bought a new home? Knowing exactly who you want to target then makes it so much easier to take the next step, which is to getting to know your customers and your clients and prospective ones. We want to know them so much better.
Now, while we’re on the subject, I’d love to get to know you better. So come and join in the conversation over on my Facebook page or on Instagram. You’ll find us @SimplyStandoutMarketing. Thanks so much for joining me today. I’ll be back again next week to help you simplify and amplify your small business marketing.
