Hi! Victoria here from The Bookkeeper Hub, HBA Encompass, and Zest for Success. So, this morning I’m back in my car studio. Who doesn’t love a car studio? It’s quiet. Lighting’s a bit off, but you know I can sit here and talk to you guys on my phone at school pick up, at swimming, or whatever it is. Yeah! I get some weird looks on people walking pass but it’s quiet. It’s the best studio ever. And today, we’re talking about Marketing. So, if you think about what we’ve learned over the last few episodes, we’ve talked about the basic fundamentals of planning your business and making sure that it’s viable. Well today, we’re gonna delve a bit deeper into Marketing. Not the actual advertising part of the Marketing, but the logic behind what you’re doing and who you’re doing it for. Now, I do have some notes, so I’m just gonna supposed to dive right in.
So, it doesn’t really matter what kind of business you’re in, whether be it an online business, a service business, a retail business, bricks-and-mortar, wholesale, building construction. Whatever you will do, whatever it is that you’re in, everyone needs to get the word out there that they actually have a business, that is selling their service or product. And before, you can get the word out there, you’ve got to work out who you’re talking to, who is your market. And when I’m talking about market, I’m not going ‘Oh my god! I’m a bookkeeper. I can sell my services to anyone who has a business.’ Yeah, I can but that’s like, I don’t know, standing up on a high-rise and shooting shotgun pellets and hoping one of them that someone catches one. There’s no way that you can market to people by just putting it out there to the whole great unknown. You have to deal deeper into who your target market is. So, the target market is the exact person that you want to sell to. And, the best way to do that is to think about an avatar. I’m not talking about those crazy blue guys flying around in James Cameron movie. I’m talking about someone that you can picture in your mind that when you look into market your business you’re talking to. So in my situation, I got a friend called Nicole. She’s a mother of two girls, wife to a husband who’s a tradie. And, I know that when I talk about things that can help someone in their business, I picture her that I’m talking to and that means that I can talk in a real way that’s understandable to someone that I’m actually trying to sell or to market to. And, it’s all about the demographics, the age, what their likes, and their interests are. So, we talked about the other day trying to work out who your target market is. So, let’s have suppose a couple of other examples. If you’re selling Porsches, you’re not gonna be able to target 20-year old guys that you know. They just don’t have the money to spend on those kind of luxury items. Chances are you’re looking at 40 to 50, maybe even 60 year old gents who want to, perhaps going through a midlife crisis or whatever it is, want to look good, want a feeling of power, and they’re the people that you’re marketing to. The same thing if you’re marketing tide dive baby clothes. You’re not gonna try market them to middle-aged man. You’re looking at young moms who want something funky and cool for their kids, something to show a bit of originality. And if you think about those examples, you can see that if I was just to market tied up business clothes to the great world, I would be spending money sending out ads or messages to do many people who are never going to buy my product or my service. So, I’m gonna read something to you. I’m sorry I have to look down to do this but this is an example that James Tuckerman from AntHill fame talks about. Time and time again and I love it. It’s just, I think it’s amazing. So sometimes, your target markets are not what you think they are, so I want you to picture a group of perspective clients. Men aged over 65. Some well into their 70’s. What do they look like? What are their interests and hobbies. Do they like getting together and play golf? Think about what this people look like, who they are. Got a good imagination? You form an image? So, what if I said to you that these people are the rolling stones. So just because you’ve got an image in your mind of four guys who get together and play golf, it’s a totally different image to say my dad and his mates playing golf. I mean these guys have massive disposable incomes. So, the point here is you need to determine who your target market is, so you can market to them. So, that’s our Target Market 101.
Tomorrow we’re gonna talk about market capacity, understanding key competitors, and dive down into the 4 Ps of Marketing. I’ll see you then.