developing your target marketing

Developing Your Target Market

About The Author

XO Digital Marketing aims to help main street businesses marketing themselves in the

digital age. Building a local online presence is not impossible & can be more affordable

than traditional marketing. It is far more interactive and allows the people and

personality of your business to shine through.

We provide a full range of marketing solutions to help bridge the technology &

marketing gap for entrepreneurs to focus on their people and products. Need help

attracting new local clients? Need help getting repeat business? We can help on both

fronts.

We hope you find our ebooks helpful in teaching and training you on various aspects of

digital marketing that you can employ today to increase your bottom line. We provide

both baseline and advanced techniques to help no matter what level you are currently

operating at.


I'm kind of a big deal

We have discussed a bit about positioning yourself as an authority on your website, and

giving people the impression that you are a big deal, and you are good at what you do.

There are limits to how you do that, and if you go too far you will come across as slimy

and combative to those who are seriously interested in giving you money. Your hope is

to impress people and let them figure out on their own that you are a big deal. That's not

to say that you can't ask other people to help you in this department however.

With this in mind we are going to focus on two areas:

1. Your target markets social media platform of choice

2. Directory listings.


In this section I am not going to teach you how to game social media to benefit from

search engines. That is not the way I believe you will win in the long run. I am however

going to share with you my thoughts on how to market directly to your customers and

get the benefits of social media in search engines at the same time.

Since we are going to do it the right way, it requires a little planning in the beginning. So

for today we are going to focus on finding your avatar.

Avatar, you mean like the movie?

No I mean your ideal customer. An Avatar is an iconic representation of whom you

would like to sell your product to above everyone else. I know you might be inclined to

say everyone here, but I have learned that if you are MARKETING to everyone you are

selling to no one.

Red Bull And Their Marketing Genius

Take a look at Redbull for a minute interacting with their clients

on Facebook. No seriously go take a look! (

http://facebook.com/redbull )

Did you notice they have 39 MILLION fans? Did you also notice

that they are clearly marketing to a particular audience? What

age & interests do you think they are targeting? If you guessed

20-35 year olds who are into extreme sports then you are right!

Now, let me ask another question. Of those 39 million fans, do you think all of them fit

that market? Of course they don't, but by defining who they are talking to, it has allowed

them to get traction.

http://facebook.com/redbull


Benefits Not Features

I also would like you to notice that they talk about their products very little, on social

media. They talk about the larger picture of what they would like to associate their brand

with, and its benefits. It doesn't matter if YOU believe that Redbull gives you wings or

not, in the eyes of the many that follow them closely, it gives them energy if they drink it.

I want to be clear about associations and outright lying here. There is a right way and a

wrong way to do this, and if they were to come out and make false claims as fact then

that would be a serious violation of integrity. These are merely subjective views created

by Redbull and those who like them.

In that light, many people do not care what insurance does technically, and many

customers might yawn at the idea of talking about insurance, at least until they need it

or get billed for it! However with a little thought from you in the beginning, I am sure you

can make a list of benefits that each product has, and draw associations of what those

benefits represent.

Begin Developing Your Target Market

I would begin to write down who your avatar might be. To do this answer the following

questions with this in mind.

1. What age is my ideal client?

2. Are they married? Do they have kids?

3. Where do they live?

4. What are their interests?

5. What are their needs at this age?

6. What conflicts with their needs and their wants?

Once you have developed who you are speaking to, we then want to develop what we

are saying to them in general. Here are some ideas to get you started.

1. Where do they hang out online?

2. If I had one product that I sell, that they need, what would it be?

3. What are the features of that product? What are the benefits of that product?

4. What pleasures can I associate?

5. What fears?


6. What can I associate with my product even further out?

Social Media

So you have developed your avatar and know who you're marketing to. Now we need to

find out where you audience hangs out. For many companies Facebook, especially if

you are selling to consumers, is probably going to be a likely candidate. Once you have

identified one social media platform that you are going to use and excel in, you should

begin to hone your message. Then look at the view, likes, and response data to

understand what your audience is interested in.

After working with many companies one thing is very clear most are not familiar with

social media and they don't have a lot of time to use it. So rather than trying to be

everywhere on every social platform my advice would be to pick the platform that your

avatar is most likely already spending time and focus your marketing efforts there.

Pick A Social Platform and Excel


Although you'll find most of the time that we will mention three or four social media

platforms please realize that there are hundreds that you could choose from and it's

your responsibility to find the ones that best fit your audience.

It's important to have a well-rounded set of goals when using social media especially in

the beginning. For example a lot of people have an unreal and an unspoken expectation

to use social media in the beginning and generate a ton of traffic. Although this is

possible, it is not likely and I want to give you an example to compare.

I've said this before but rather than think of social media as a billboard, think of it as a

building. A lot of planning goes into place when constructing a building for business.

You look for prime location, what side of the street how many people pass this area on

a daily basis, how much is it going to cost, etc.?

Building a social media platform is really much the same thing. In the first few months

our goals are to build the platform. Rather than setting goals of generating traffic, it

might be ideal to look at the data. Don’t overlook that 1st you must have an audience to

speak to, building an audience is a goal & strategy in itself.

1st Goal

So our goal for the 1st few weeks is to identify one social media platform that is likely a

better fit for your avatar. Build out your page. Each social media platforms have some

level of customization they allow. Use your logo, and successful marketing you have

previously used in the past, and personalize it. Consumers and businesses connect with

humans, not buildings of fancy slogans. They want authentic.

2nd Goal

Establish goals for followers. Find current clients, past clients, family, & friends. These

are the easiest to identify and connect with. Then set goals for new connections for

each week. Find people using hashtags, community pages, or find pages similar to

yours and see who follows them.

3rd Goal

Have a consistent posting schedule then begin following it. With a little thought you can

pre-schedule a weeks worth of content in about an hour. That's 15 posts! Then, in a

month you can look at the data.

Tips to having great success

Post Frequently

I suggest 4-5 times per week at least, and up to 3 times


I suggest 4-5 times per week at least and up to 3 times per day at the most.

Content

• Create a call to action in almost every post.

• Include a picture with almost every post.

Find a star

Who is the one most likely talking?

Content types

• This or That

• Themes to days

• Fan Showcase

• Office Showcase

• Business Shout Outs - Local good will

• Caption This

Ideal Post Times (Try to pre-schedule 3 posts a day.)

8AM, 11AM, 4PM, & 8PM

If you run your Facebook posting like a business and put it on your schedule you will

find time for it. If you follow the plan that I laid out you can eventually learn to create a

couple of week's worth of posting in an hour or two. Then you can just check in daily for

a few minutes to make sure it is operating smoothly, and comment back.

Below I have further explained my content strategy. Use this as a guide to find content

that you can use. Make sure to find content that reflects the personality of your office,

but somewhat conforms to the style that I have laid out here.

The last page is an actual content map that you can use to write your "every week"

schedule. I have filled out two days as an example. If you take a look at this you will see

that every Monday there will be a "Local Business Shout Out" at 8 a.m. ideally it would

be great to have three posts a day, but if your time and staff are limited, simply pre-

schedule one post a day at different times.

Once you learn this concept well, literally take a 1 or 2 hour block of time each week to

schedule this content.


This or That

This could also be A or B or True and False Questions

Themes to Days

Health Tip Tuesday

Game Day Theme

Don’t forget to add a product/service tip of the day!

Client/Fan Show Case

Bring your clients into the story with a gas card give away monthly!!

Office Show Case

Help your clients feel like they are a part of your world by highlighting birthdays,

milestones, and other major office events.

Business Shout Outs

Highlight other companies and @tag their FB page for exposure.

Caption This

Find funny pictures that people are left to add their imagination and comment.

Monday

Post 1: Local Business Shout Out 8am

Post 2: This or That 11am

Post 3: Caption This 4pm

Tuesday

Post 1: Themed Day (Health Tip Tuesday) 8am

Post 2: Office Show Case 11am

Post 3: This or That 4pm

Simply continue this for the rest of the week; hopefully you can see that once you have

a plan on how to tackle this it can be done well ahead of time with less stress.


Conclusion

Digital Marketing encompasses many different but related tasks that are necessary to

for success of your business. A great many business owners have not yet taken these

strategies seriously and have not achieved optimal results in there market.

If you are a small business trying to build a brand in today’s world, the time is now to

begin this journey to build your online presence to reach your consumers. Some of

these items in this e-book you may be able to tackle some of these on your own, others

you may want to hire others to do for you.

Visit our website at www.xodigitalmarketing.com to see if there are ways in which we

can help you get started.

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Or Digital Marketing Consulting, where we teach you how to market yourself

http://www.xodigitalmarketing.com/

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