If you are new to entrepreneurship, a common challenge you will face is identifying your target audience. You may think you know who your customers are, but entering the marketplace can quickly reveal that your assumptions were wrong.
In my experience as a business mentor, it is not uncommon for business owners to seek guidance after months—and sometimes years—of struggling to generate sales. Yes, years. In some cases, they eventually discover that the problem was not their product or service. They were marketing to the wrong people.
The Problem With Trying to Reach Everyone
Many business owners make the mistake of trying to appeal to a large audience. They believe that reaching more people will increase their chances of making more sales. It sounds logical, but it can work against you.
When you try to appeal to everyone, your messaging often becomes too general. Your product or service was not positioned as the solution to a specific problem for a specific group of people. Without that connection, potential customers have little reason to choose you over someone else.
Instead, focus on a niche market.
The more clearly you can define your audience, the easier it becomes to create products, services, marketing messages, and experiences that speak directly to their needs. Reaching a smaller audience that actively wants what you offer can also be more cost-effective than spending money trying to reach a broad audience that may have little interest in your solution.
Specific Expertise Has Value
Consider a food magazine publisher looking for photography and food styling services.
They are more likely to hire a photographer who specializes in food photography and styling than a photographer with a food/product section buried among several other types of photography in their portfolio.
Why?
The specialist understands the subject, the styling challenges, the industry, and the tight deadlines involved. That expertise has perceived value, and the publisher is willing to pay more for it.
Your marketing should communicate that expertise.
When you understand your niche, you can speak directly to the problems your audience experiences and explain how your business can solve them. Your advertisements, website, social media content, and sales materials should demonstrate that you understand what your customers need—not tell them that you sell something.
Start With Who Is Already Buying
The first step to defining your niche market is to look at your current customers.
Who is purchasing your products or services?
If you have not made a sale yet, start by identifying who you believe needs your product or service the most and why they are the right fit for your business.
Do not choose an audience simply because you think it would be profitable. There needs to be a logical connection between the people you are targeting and what you offer.
Be Careful Who You Choose
Years ago, I assisted the owner of a vegan natural skincare company who wanted to sell her products to more African American women because she is a black woman.
There had also been a strong push at the time in the media encouraging consumers to support and promote Black-owned businesses.
There was nothing wrong with wanting to grow the business by targeting African American women. The problem was that her customer base told a different story.
She had been in business for approximately ten years, and when I asked who was purchasing her products, she told me her customers were primarily middle-aged White and Asian women. She also acknowledged that the ingredients in her products did not appeal to many African American women, and her prices were not what many of them were willing to pay.
That information mattered.
Her current customers gave valuable market insight, yet she was overlooking it because she had decided who she wanted her customer to be.
Stop Chasing the Person Who Does Not Want You
My response to her was, why are you chasing after the man who does not want you?
She laughed, but she understood the point.
Your job as a business owner is not to convince everyone to buy from you. It is to identify the people who need and value what you offer, then continue providing enough value that they want to remain your customers. Trying to force your business onto an audience that is not interested in your offering creates unnecessary stress, confusion, and wasted marketing dollars.
Trends can influence buying behavior, but they should not determine your entire business strategy. What is popular today will be replaced by something else tomorrow. Loyal customers, however, are valuable regardless of what is trending.
Pay attention to the people who consistently choose your business. Learn why they choose you. Then use that information to serve them better.
Who Benefits the Most From What You Offer?
Another important question to ask is: Who benefits the most from my products or services?
The people you want to sell to are not always the best fit for your offering.
Do not select an audience because you associate them with money, influence, or status. Your target market needs to make sense for your business.
For example, if you provide estate planning services for affluent households, spending your marketing budget on people with an annual income of $70,000 or a net worth less than $10 million is not the most strategic use of your resources.
Look at the actual benefits of your offering. What problem does it solve? What result are people expecting? Who is most likely to value that result?
Those questions will help you move beyond demographics and begin understanding your niche.
Dig Deeper Into What Makes You Different
Let us return to the skincare company.
The owner had traveled extensively and experienced different cultures. That experience influenced the unique ingredients she selected for her products.
Those ingredients resonated with her existing customers because they were familiar with them. Some customers were from countries where those ingredients were native, while others had lived overseas or encountered them during their travels.
That connection became part of the appeal.
The lesson is not that every skincare company needs exotic ingredients or an international story; you need to look closely at what makes your business different and determine whether those differences matter to your customers.
Be strategic. Dig deeper.
What small or seemingly insignificant detail could become a major selling point for your company?
What are the customers’ habits, hobbies, interests, and lifestyles? What influences their purchasing decisions? What do they value? What problem are they trying to solve?
Look at your previous sales to identify buying patterns. Read your testimonials and product reviews carefully. Customers will often tell you exactly why they purchased from you, what they liked about the experience, and what problem your product or service helped them solve.
Do not rush through this process. Give yourself time to think through what the information is telling you.
You may discover that the audience you originally had in mind is not your strongest market at all.
Put Your Findings to Work
Once you have gathered this information, do not leave it sitting in a notebook or buried in a business plan. Update the target audience section of your business plan with what you have learned. Then revisit your sales and marketing plan, marketing materials, social media content, product and service descriptions, and website copy. Make sure they reflect your newly defined niche. Most importantly, speak directly to that target audience’s pain points. Tell them you understand the problem. Explain how your product or service addresses it. Show them why your business is a good fit for their needs.
Get Specific
Become more intentional about who you serve and why your business is the right fit for them.
When you know your audience, your messaging becomes clearer. Your marketing becomes more focused. Your advertising dollars can work harder. And your customers are more likely to see themselves in what you are offering.
Take the time to study your customers, examine your sales, listen to your reviews, and question your assumptions.
Stop trying to sell to everyone. Find the people who need what you offer, understand what matters to them, and build your marketing around solving their problems. That is where a strong niche begins.
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