Kathleen GagePower Up For ProfitsTM

Market Identification

Pinpoint Your Ideal Client

Market Identification

2 Six Figure Product Creation

Building a Successful Business

Defining your target market is one of the most important actions to

take in any marketing plan, but many people skip this step. Instead

they jump right into trying to sell a product or service before they

have a handle on who their market is and what motivates them to take

action.

In order to develop a successful business, which includes offering information products specific to your market, you have to know who

your market is and is not.

It is possible to have more than one market, but begin with the most

obvious. In addition, you must identify any limits you have including budget, time and resources.

You have to know with whom you want to do business and who wants to do business with you.

You need to know what sets you apart from your competition. You absolutely must know and understand your unique selling proposition.

And you must continually evaluate who your market is and is not.

As you begin to develop your marketing strategies, keep in mind some

of the most important aspects of marketing—your products and services, pricing, and who wants, needs and will pay for your products

and services, and overall promotions.

You also have to know what motivates your market to take action.

This is what determines if they will invest in your information. In most cases, it boils down to four primary areas. They want to increase

revenues, increase productivity, decrease costs and/or increase the quality of their personal or professional life.

The more you can pinpoint specifically what they want, the easier your

job in development and delivery of products and services becomes.

Finding Your Niche Market

As an expert, your job is to find an unfilled or underserved need. Pay

attention to what is being talked about in forums and social networks. What types of questions are being asked of you by your customers?

What are you reading on other experts’ blogs?

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Keep up on industry and market trends. All of these activities will help you find what needs are not being met in your market.

Once you find the unfilled need, do as much research as you can. This

is a great way to outline a topic for an information product. Determine

the unfilled or underserved need, do your research and collect

information.

Here’s another way to determine an unmet need: Are you having difficulty finding a solution to a particular problem? Chances are others

may have the same problem and are also having difficulty finding a

solution. If you searched for information and could not find it when

you most needed it, there is likely a great opportunity here.

Begin to research the market demand by conducting surveys, visiting blogs and forums to begin discussions about the topic and utilizing the power of social networks.

Avoid Common Pitfalls

Without a clear understanding of your market and what you have to

offer, you may make some of the common mistakes inherent to running a business.

Wasting time targeting the wrong market for your overall

objectives.

Coming across as only interested in the sale, rather than

someone who is interested in the customer’s needs.

Not being prepared when opportunity presents itself.

Appearing desperate by not being willing to let go of a potential

or existing client, when the fit is incompatible.

Trying to sell something too soon, before establishing if your

product or service can really offer the best solution.

Prejudging a person’s ability and potential to buy.

Compromising your core values because you have moved into a

place of forcing, rather than attracting business.

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When you are in alignment with your market, your values, your offerings and your message, the process of growing your business

become a flowing experience. That is not to say there is no effort

involved. Quite the opposite. Yet, the effort becomes such that things

begin to flow.

Opportunities seem to appear out of nowhere. You seem to be very

lucky. The fact is, luck is when opportunity and preparedness meet.

When you are prepared and opportunity shows up, you will begin to

feel as if luck is on your side.

Core Values

Understanding (and honoring) your values is essential to identifying

your market. Your values are what drive you. A value is a belief, a mission, or a philosophy that is meaningful and important to who you

are.

Your values can range from the obvious like honesty, integrity, hard work and loyalty to those that are not as apparent. Everyone has core

values. Some people are aware of it. Others are not.

Some of your values are inherited. You learn them from parents, siblings, ministers, and other person of influence in your life.

You also get some of your values from celebrities, shows you watch,

the media, and your life experiences.

Values can last a lifetime, but your life experiences can have a major

impact on a shift in your values.

When you identify your values you tend to make much better choices than if you have no idea what drives you. The more you can identify

your core values the more likely your business success and enjoyment.

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Knowing your values helps you:

Have a clear focus on what you want and where you are going.

Make great decisions for your own unique situation.

Determine if potential clients are a good fit.

Honor who you truly are and your life path.

Below is a partial list of some of the most highly recognized values.

Trust Love Relationships

Freedom Tolerance Education

Honesty Courage Compassion

Commitment Forgiveness Humor

Respect Patience Truth

Family Loyalty Responsibility

Diversity Community Intimacy Integrity Self-Discipline Spiritual Growth

Dependability Fairness Adventure

Fun Playfulness Health

Peace Challenge Romance

Recognition Contribution Service to others

Happiness and success can be achieved when you tie your goals

into your values.

Identify Your Market

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The more you know who your market is the more you will be able to know if you are a solution to their needs. Identifying your market is a

fluid process. It is not a “one time and I am done” process.

This is where many people brush over a foundational aspect of their

business. They guess at who their market it rather than really

knowing.

Here are some essential questions that should be considered as you move forward.

What do you know about your market?

Gender? Age? Primarily male? Female? Both?

What is their family structure? (Number of children, extended

family, etc.)

What is their lifestyle like?

Where do they live?

What do they do for a living?

What keeps them awake at night?

How do they like to spend their spare time?

What motivates them?

What do they invest in specific to your offerings?

What are they likely to spend money on?

What is their annual income?

What methods do they prefer for online payment?

What type of web sites, forums and social networks do they

visit?

How do they want their product delivered?

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Identifying your market is an ongoing process. Who your market is today may not be who they are a year from now. As you grow and

change, so does your market.

When I first began my business, my primary market was corporations,

who needed a trainer for team building, customer service, and

leadership. I don’t do any of this today. I had no idea I would be an

Internet marketing advisor when I first began my business in 1994.

This is not to say at some point I won’t again work with corporations,

but for now, I work with primarily solopreneurs.

My business model and my target market changed as I discovered

what my passion was, with whom I wanted to work, what I wanted to teach and what the market demand was and is.

NOTE: The more you tap into your passion the more fun you have in all areas of your life.

Back to your market. How large is the market you are targeting? In order to have a profitable business you have to have a large enough

market of people who will buy from you.

With low-priced items you need more buyers. With higher end, fewer

higher-priced items usually works well.

Also consider…

Who will buy your product?

Is there a primary or secondary target market?

What factors influence their decision to buy?

Who is involved in the purchase decision?

How often will they buy?

Where do they currently buy, when and how much?

Is there opportunity to turn casual buyers into loyal buyers?

Can you build a long-term relationship with your market?

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In addition to identifying your market, determine what products and services related to your offerings your customers will want, need and

purchase.

Related offerings can include:

Articles

Reports

Tips booklet

Teleseries

Telecourses

Transcripts

eBooks

Books

Other teleconferences

Audios

Videos

Mentoring/Coaching courses

One on one coaching

Membership programs

Live events

Subscription services

Other considerations…

Is what you offer lucrative?

How will you reach your potential customers?

Gathering Information

Let’s say you have a good idea of who your market is, but you’re not

sure what they want. In your target audience, what are their most

challenging problems, their pain points, and what drives them?

There are a number of ways to gather information such as surveys,

forum discussions, article directories, newsworthy items, and social

networks. Pay attention to what’s going on around you in order to

identify your market’s challenges.

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Emotional hot buttons vary as much as markets do. Here are just a few:

Many people want what

they don’t have

More money

Better health

To look and feel younger,

sexier and more vibrant

More leisure time

Better relationships

Fulfilling jobs

Successful businesses

To be liked and loved

Peace of mind

Increased effectiveness

Security

Knowing what is “hot” at any given time is simply a matter of

researching your market.

Find out what motivates your prospects. For some, it will be a high

sense of values, for others it will be money, or status, or love. There are universal drives that are common to humans, and we all prefer

one or two of them over others. If you’re not familiar with these, do some self-assessments on yourself to discover what your own

preferences are. This will make it easier for you to identify and understand motivators in others.

What motivates your market? One of the best ways to find out is to

ask them. It’s amazing how many people run a business without ever having asked their customers what they want.

Obtaining market and customer information does not have to be

difficult or costly. There are numerous ways to obtain the data you

need.

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You can determine what your market wants by:

Study your own market and customers.

Study your competitor’s products and services and what your

competitors’ customers are buying.

Ask people you know.

Run a poll on your blog or in your newsletter.

Use the Internet for research. A great place to find out what

people are interested in is on Amazon.com. Notice what books

are at the top of the bestseller list.

Social networks and micro-blogs, such as Facebook, LinkedIn,

Google+ and Twitter can be excellent locations to do research.

Visit your competitors’ websites and blogs.

You can visit forums and read postings members are making.

Read blogs related to your market.

Surveying Your Market

A great way to find out what your customers want is to conduct a survey. Depending on the type of information you are attempting to

gather, you may want to use an anonymous survey.

An excellent resource is Survey Monkey at www.surveymonkey.com

Through a survey, you can identify needs that are much more

important to your market than you initially thought. It is with this

information that your marketing can be focused on specific areas,

based on importance.

Rank these needs, then focus on the two or three most important

motivators to develop a theme for communication with your market.

Develop your product offerings based on what your research

determines. You must also develop your marketing and sales

messages in your customer’s language.

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You can post your survey link in your social networks, write articles with the survey link at the end of the article, post on your blog, or

send a request out to your current opt in subscribers. These are just a

few of the many ways you can get input from your market.

A Sample Survey

Surveys can save you an incredible amount of time and frustration.

The process for developing this in my signature programs (including the one you are in) begins with a simple survey. This is something you

would be well advised to consider before investing a lot of time and

money developing programs that may not sell as well as you hoped.

Or, you might find by following this strategy the demand is higher than originally anticipated.

The following information is what I used for one of my programs - Teleseminars for Money Program.

To see if there was an interest in the topic of making money with teleseminars, I hosted a free preview call. There was minimal risk in

doing this.

Within 48 hours of announcing the preview call, The Truth About

Making Money with Teleseminars, over 350 people registered for the call.

Before developing the curriculum for the preview teleseminar, I surveyed the 350 who had registered. Out of those who registered

about 125 people responded—over 30% of the registered attendees answered the survey.

The responses not only gave me a great indication of what to teach on

the preview call, they also gave me key information on what I could

offer as a paid course.

Here’s the information I gathered from the survey.

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77.9% of those who responded to the preview call survey had moderate to above average experience on the Internet. The rest

either had very little online experience or a substantial amount.

72% use the Internet to market their business. Only 17%

currently use teleseminars to market their business.

This information proved to be very valuable. Now I knew my listeners

had some Internet knowledge. I also found out they had very little, if any, experience with teleseminars. This allowed me to develop the

teleseminar in a way that would be the most beneficial to the

registered participants.

Be sure to survey your subscribers, clients and potential clients about

what is the most important thing they want to know.

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Once you find out what they want, use some of their key words in the title and sales copy.

Consider the following when developing your surveys:

What questions could you ask on a survey?

Open-ended or Closed-ended Questions

On a scale of 1 to 10 how important is…

What is the most important part of training? (Multiple Choice)

What is your single greatest challenge with…?

If you could solve one problem, what would it be?

Give us your opinion on…

Use questions using a Likert scale format to assess a person’s

feelings.

1 = Strongly disagree

2 = Disagree

3 = Neither agree nor disagree

4 = Agree

5 = Strongly agree

Demographic information such as age, gender, education,

geographic region.

Keys to Successful Surveys

Identify your objective.

Decide what information you need.

Develop a questionnaire.

Conduct the survey.

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Analyze the responses.

Recommend a course of action.

Let your market tell you what they want and need.

Speaking the Same Language

To gain the greatest results you will need to use the language of the

market you are working with.

For example, a couple of years ago a client hired me to host what they called a teleconference. Initially I referred to what we were doing as a

telseminar. It turns out we both meant the exact same thing.

Once we were clear we were talking about the same thing, I used the word teleconference, rather than teleseminar, in any of our

conversations. The client came from an extremely corporate environment, rather than the small business environment and the

word teleconference was what they preferred to use in all correspondance.

Although I have hosted, facilitated and been the project manager for

teleseminars in a number of industries, today my primary market is

made up of speakers, authors, coaches and consultants who want to expand their market reach, visibility, expert status and make lots of

money with information project. Thus, the language I use in my marketing material is specific to this market.

Another example is the use of the words report and white paper. A report can be almost identical to a white paper but the term “white paper” is more corporate.

Researching Competitors

Researching your competitors is a great way to find out what your

market wants and needs. Don’t build your business in a vacuum. Find

out who else is trying to win your customers over and how they are doing it.

Study what your competitors are doing. Visit their blogs, websites, and

the social network groups they may belong to. Evaluate their product

and service offerings, price points, position on the web, etc. Opt in to their database. You can learn a lot by being on your competitors list.

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You can set up a gmail account specifically for this purpose. Doing so allows you to review your competitors information at your leisure and

not clutter up your regular inbox.

Make a list of your obvious competitors. Next, consider competitors

that may not be as obvious. Who is vying for your customer’s time,

money and attention?

Knowing as much as you can about your target market and what your competitors are doing allows you to determine the following:

What sets you apart from the competition and how can you position that to your advantage?

What products and services are your customers seeking that

may not be offered by others?

What is unique about what you offer compared to what your

competitors offer?

Is it feasible to collaborate with your competitors to bring more

value to your market and theirs?

Here are some important facts

Specific products and services appeal to a limited group of

people. The sooner you recognize this the sooner you can begin developing products that your market really wants.

You have to define your market. The more you know about your

target market, the greater your chances of having higher sales, a bigger market share and increased profits.

Define your product based on the needs of your market.

Don’t try to please everyone. It isn’t going to happen! Becoming

a specialist in your niche is a perfect way to capitalize on your market segment. You can grow your market in ways you may

not realize at this point.

It is better to go deep into a market and be viewed as the go to

expert by a smaller group of dedicated clients and customers

rather than spreading yourself so thin that you are one among

many in the consumer’s mind.

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Identify Your Market

Worksheet

What do you currently know about your market? If nothing, that’s okay. Move on to the next question.

Describe your “ideal” client. You may not currently be working with

them but this would be who you would work with if you could.

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Identify your top 5 values. (Only 5)

Trust Love Relationships

Freedom Tolerance Education

Honesty Courage Compassion

Commitment Forgiveness Humor

Respect Patience Truth

Family Loyalty Responsibility

Diversity Community Intimacy Integrity Self-Discipline Spiritual Growth

Dependability Fairness Adventure

Fun Playfulness Health

Peace Challenge Romance Recognition Contribution Service to others

List your top 5 in order of importance.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

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What is the number one problem your market has? What keeps them awake at night?