One key mistake small business owners make when addressing their marketing is not wholly committing to their product or service offering, therefore spreading themselves too thin trying to please everyone with superfluous products and services that are not profitable or aligned with their overall business goals. Sound familiar?
Another key mistake is not fully understanding their target audience, which leads to chasing after people that are unlikely to buy the products and services, resulting in a waste of time, budget and resources.
Whether you are a coffee shop owner compiling next season’s menu, a hairdresser deciding where to locate your new hair salon, a private medical consultant choosing how to promote your practice to increase new patients, or a professional deciding whether to specialise – research and understanding is key.
Know Your Business
“If you don’t understand the details of your business you are going to fail” Jeff Bezos
Outlining your business offering is something that should be carefully considered even before you open the doors to customers. However, even as an established business, this is an exercise that you should revisit frequently (at least annually) so you can keep focused on your long-term business goals and really get to know your business inside and out. If you are noticing that over years of trading, your exact proposition has become a little hazy, then now is the perfect time to get reacquainted.
“It may sound strange, the concept that you may not know your own business. However, you would be surprised how many business owners just cruise through their week and year without much actual navigation towards an end goal.
Many small businesses are just happy to make money, so they end up taking on customers that are a drain on time and resources, they end up offering discounts on products and services that they are unable to sell for the full price and even if they are cobbling together a profit, they are tired at the end of the week as they are not being strategic enough in their approach.” Claire – Marketing Consultant
How to get to know your business better
Give yourself a planning day, or few days if you can afford the time. Buy some big white paper and coloured pens and start to get your thoughts onto paper – back to basics is best at this stage.
These are just some things to get you started; you will likely find as you get going that more questions and thoughts will arise that need working through.
- Map out your exact product or service offering. This doesn’t mean it can’t evolve in the future but don’t try to offer so much and not really be able to excel at anything. Finding a niche can give you an invariably easier ride when it comes to managing a business and for marketing. From there you can expand.
- Assess past data, if available. If you are already up and running and keep any records such as a timesheet per customer/client, or costs versus sale price of products, dig these out as they can be useful in cutting away the wheat from the chaff. The aim is to see what products and services are profitable and which are losing you time, money and energy.
- This also applies to any specific customers that are not profitable for you, as whilst you may not be as ruthless to just “fire” them, you may want to put a plan in place to get them to fit into your new model.
- Outline your business ethics, values and voice. Your products and services should always fit into the wider aspect of your business values. What do you stand for? What do you want to be known for? What does your business represent?
- Is it top-quality coffee sourced from sustainable resources? If so, don’t widen your menu with every flavour tea that can be purchased on the high-street, because if it’s on the menu, you need to stock it.
- Is it affordable hair-cuts? If so, make sure you are using hair products that match the price so your costs are not too high. And don’t have “wedding hair” on your list of services for the two calls you may get per year.
- Look at time, budget and resources to assess if you can realistically offer it. This is where is pays to keep your product and service offering tight, so your current resources can easily manage to deliver the standard required to exceed customer expectations.
Once you have started to peel back some of the layers to better know your business, it’s values and what it offers, you can then start to understand the type of people likely to purchase these products and services.
Know Your Audience
“Everyone is not your customer” Seth Godin
Knowing your audience is also multi-layered, particularly if you have many products or services as each may have their own target audience that may be quite different from the others. This is why a marketing strategy is so important to ensure you reach the right people across the board.
“A common response when a business is not niche/specialist is that “everyone is my potential customer”. This often isn’t quite true as your products or services, however general, will always be better suited to people of a certain age, gender, geographical location, salary bracket and so on.
Knowing your target audience means not only profiling them, but also learning about their purchasing habits, their likes and dislikes, where they “hang out” (offline or online) and what you need to do to connect with them.” Claire – Marketing Consultant
How to get to know your audience better
In the same planning day, or another, sit down and start to dig deeper on your target audience.
Here are some things to get you started:
- Carefully consider who each product or service is really aimed for. You may have a primary audience and secondary audience.
- If you are a private orthopaedic surgeon offering knee replacement surgery, your service is not aimed for people under 50 years of age. Even if there may be one or two that require this procedure, it is the exception not the rule. Your knee replacement service customers would be 50+, likely 60+, have been in pain for a considerable time, are finding their lifestyle affected by their condition and if they are considering private healthcare will either have reasonable wealth or be insured. They are likely to also be in your area unless you have a high reputation attracting patients nationally and internationally.
- If you are an IFA, a retirement planning service would have a primary audience of people in their say mid 30s to 50s when retirement is on the horizon and they are established in their career to be able to afford to pay into a pension, for example. But a secondary audience may be anyone from 21 who can be convinced to put some of their earnings into an ISA when they start working. The secondary audience is much smaller but still relevant.
- For each product or service, also think about who would be the absolute ideal customer for you.
- They may be people that are accessible, have enough money to purchase from you, perhaps make quick purchasing decisions, may be open to an up-sell, would give you repeat business and would likely recommend you to friends and family.
- Think also about how it would be dealing with these people. Most service providers enjoy the idea of their customers being friendly, approachable, receptive to advice, paying bills on time without chasing and so on.
- It is important to rule out of your “ideal customer” those that would take up exponential time and/or cause you and your team a headache, as they are not “ideal” and therefore are not worth targeting.
“It is important to remember, that your target audience is made up of the people most likely to buy from you and the people you most want to sell to.” Claire – Marketing Consultant
Once you have started to better understand your target audience for each of your products and services, you can then start to work on your marketing strategy – how to reach these people.
This is why is is crucial to know your offering (your business) and know who you want to reach (your audience) before you start to promote.
Key points and next steps
- Spend time to get to know your own business offering. Look at each product or service in isolation and ensure it fits in line with your business goals, values and ethics. Ensure each is profitable and manageable with the resources you have at your disposal, which includes time and budget.
- Also spend time to understand your audience for each product or service. If they vary considerably, consider how you may be able to trim your products and services to narrow your target market – after all, the more channelled you can be with your time and budget, generally the more effective.
- Consider who you see as an ideal customer to make your work joyful and fulfilling. Sure, not everyone will be your dream client or buyer, but by outlining it from the start, it certainly helps you to focus the energy in the right place.
- If you can balance profitable products and services with the right target audience/s then this is a good start for business success.
Best of luck – you know where we are if you need anything!