Do you know your target market? If you do, there will be evidence:

• Your business will be growing
• You will see regular increases in income or customer base
• Customers and clients will come looking for you

However, if you aren’t seeing this evidence — if you are working overtime looking for new clients and customers — you may not know your target market well enough.

And this is something that you can easily fix.

Without thoroughly knowing your target market, you can’t build a magnetic marketing funnel. I can’t stress this essential business fact enough. It is critical to building a sustainable business.

Think about it, would you choose an outfit before knowing where you were going to wear it? Would you rent a car without knowing where you were going to drive it? Would you pack for a trip without know where you were going?

Then why would you develop a marketing plan without knowing who you were going to market to?

You are building your marketing funnel to help solve the problems of your ideal clients or customers. It may sound counterintuitive, but the tighter you focus on your chosen market, the easier it is to attract them and market to them.

When you market to broad, general categories of people, it is hard to develop a compelling message they will respond to. So, you need to clearly define your target market and find out as much about them as you can. Here are some questions you’ll want the answers to:

• What is your chosen market’s common thread? Is it age? Career choice? Industry? Gender? Hobby?
• Where does your target market live? Locally? Nationally? Globally?
• What types of publications does your chosen market read?
• What is your target market’s typical salary range?
• Is your target market single? Married? Have children?

These are just a small sampling of the things you need to know. Basically, you’re trying to get at what makes your target market tick so that you can develop messages that will resonate with them.

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