How to Reach Your Target Market --Target Audience

Ways You Can Reach Your Target Market -- Target Audience

Starting a business is challenging enough, but finding and reaching your target market/s or audiences can be even more of a hurdle. Firstly you need to decide who your target audience or target market is, then you need to work out how you will reach them!

Here are a few things to consider when finding out who your target market is: and how you can go about reaching them:

The first question you need to ask yourself is; Are you targeting a local, regional or national market/s. When you have decided the kind of market yuou are going to target is when you can look at other things like your Business Plan, what and who your competition is. You should also put into the age group you are targeting for it will help you in knowing the kind of marketing plan to use. You should also put into consideration where your target audience shop and the kind of media they have access to; is it magazine/newspapers, television or internet?

Other things you need to think about is the kind of service or product you are going to offer to your audience and is it a seasonal product/service or its long term? You should also put into consideration the kind of budget you have in mind for the marketing plan; How you plan on reaching your target audience. Is it through the internet, through print media, through radio adverts, printed adverts and so on.

Finding and reaching your target audience or target market can be done on a shoestring budget so long as you undertake some research. Find out where your market is and what they respond to, do this and half the battle will have been won.

Reaching your target market is the second thing you should do after finding out about them. Here are some 5 KEY Steps you should follow to achieve success.

1. Undertake market research, use both primary and secondary research, find out what they read, watch and listen to.

2. Collate your market research results, then test out and trial your business, its products and services on a small sample of your target market. Find out what works and what doesn't.

3. Find out prices and so on for all the types of media your target audience use and take notice of, draw up a budget and timescale for the channels, methods of marketing and advertising you will use to reach your target market.

4. Create a marketing plan and a marketing plan for your business, products and services, will you launch everything all at the same time, or will you drip feed products and services to your target market? All of this should and must be considered to enable you to come up with a workable marketing plan and budget.

5. Decide how you will measure your success and results, how will you find out what has been successful and what has not.

Author: L J Pearce

10 Ways to Market Your Business

Creative and Cost Effective Ways to Advertise, Market and Promote Your Business

Starting a business is in some respects is a lot easier than getting your business out there and getting in found. Being known, talked about and recognized requires creativity, time, hard work and patience. Below are a few ideas as to how you can market your business and get it out there.

1. Take out banner adverts on the internet. Find out what websites your target market view and visit, and see if a banner advert on one of them would help your business.

2. Articles. Promoting a business need not cost the earth - how about writing a few articles on or around your business/target market/sector and placing them on a few free article sites.

3. Through branding. Turn your business into a brand.

4. Through flyers and handouts, print these up yourself or get them professionally printed and get them out there. Drop them through letterboxes, get them in local newspapers and so on.

5. How about marketing your business through word of mouth. Let everyone know what your business is, and how it can benefit and help others and then get them to spread the word.

REMEMBER: No matter how small or large your marketing budget, there are always ways you can market your business, sometimes it just requires you to think outside of the box a little.

6.What about marketing your business through a direct mail campaign. You could launch one of these yourself or get a company to do it for you, to ensure your material reaches your target market.

7. Through your email signature. Make sure you never send out a blank email, always make sure there is something about your business, be it a telephone number or website address at the bottom of each email you send out as you never know who may read or see the email.

8. How about marketing your business on yours and your friends and families vehicles/mode of transport.

9. Why not try using and utilizing social networking sites such as Face book and MySpace. Create pages for your business/products and keep them updated .

10. Use blogs to market your business, start your own, write for others, or try advertising on a blog.

TOP TIP: Before you jump into marketing your business, always conduct your research. Find out what your competitors are doing and what they are not. Also find out what your target market and audience read, watch and respond to. For example its no use placing an internet advert if your target market aren't internet savvy.

author: L J Pearce

How to Develop Your Small Business Marketing Strategy Elements

Developing and following a small business marketing plan is an essential task that must be continually undertaken. Marketing strategy elements that encompass shifts in market conditions, the economic outlook, or a significant change in what customers are looking for are signals that what worked in the past may not work in the future, thus requiring revisions in how a product is marketed.

Once your small business marketing plan is drafted the information in it is 'carved in stone'. Your marketing strategy elements must remain flexible to change with these, and other, internal and external factors. Developing marketing strategy elements for your small business marketing plan will keep you focused and your message consistent as changes occur.

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Research
• Dedication to follow your marketing plan.
• Flexibility to change as needed.

1. Step 1

   There are eight marketing strategy elements that your marketing plan must contain to succeed.
   
   Who Is Your Real Customer - As a small businesses you may be inclined to take on any type of customer just to make a sale and lose sight of the prospects that have the real potential to become a long term customer. This is not a growth marketing strategy. Your best strategy should be to try to address customer needs which currently are not being met in the market place. A small business cannot be all things to all people and must analyze its market, know it's own capabilities, and focus on the 'real customer' it can serve best.

2. Step 2

   Establish Small Business Marketing Goals - This is your road map of where you are now and where you want to be one, five, even ten years from now. When you have a marketing strategy and clear set of marketing goals there will be little to stop you. Writing down goals you want to accomplish is essential to the drafting of the rest of your marketing plan. If you do not know where you are going, how are you going to get there?

3. Step 3

   Differentiating Factors - A small business needs to be unique in the marketplace. This is an essential small business marketing strategy. Uniqueness can be a make-or-break marketing element in today's business world. How will you set your small business apart from your competition? What are you offering that your competition is not? Can you define a difference in how you are delivering your product/service?

4. Step 4

   A Clear Target - The two things a small business owner is always short on are time and money. When you miss your target market you are wasting both. A small business marketing strategy requires you to become an expert at target marketing. For your marketing tactics to be cost effective pick a target audience or your niche and focus on it exclusively. By marketing to your target audience, who you know already have a need for your product/service, you have already increased your small business marketing campaign' s likelihood of success.

5. Step 5

   Strong and Consistent Message - Smart marketing means effective communication. When you communicate well you make sales but when you cause confusion, such as changing your message too often, you fail. It's that simple. Creating a communication strategy for a consistent and strong marketing message is critical to your success.

6. Step 6

   Brand Your Small Business Identity - As a small business you may think you are not big enough to need a branding strategy. Nothing can be further from the truth! A Small business needs an identity that is part of a focused marketing strategy. Take time to decide how you want the market and your customers to perceive you and know your positioning in your competitive field.

7. Step 7

   Strong Small Business Positioning Plan - Small business success is achieved, or not achieved, based on how your clients and prospects perceive you and if you can help them. They decide what is in their best interest and if your product will benefit them. Position your small business with a marketing strategy that will be the best choice with the lowest risk they have in their buying process. Ensure that your company's inside reality is what your customer's outside perception of your company is.

8. Step 8

   Small Business Financial Projections - Break down by product line, for one to three years, the returns on the marketing investments you plan to make. After each marketing campaign decisions are made and implemented you need to evaluate how well they performed. Set standards of performance and evaluate results against them.

9. Step 9

   A small business marketing plan is a continuous process of testing and adjustment. It represents flexible ideas that will guide your marketing decisions. Keep your eye on these eight strategies to stay focused and consistent as your marketing plan is drafted and updated.

author: George Larson

How to Draft Your Small Business Marketing Plan - Take The Time

Drafting a small business marketing plan will benefit your small business so you need to take the time. If your business employs one or a very few and you feel that there is no time to stop, do research, and write a plan, make time. That investment of time to write your marketing plan will save your small business time and money consistently down the road.

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Time to spend researching all aspects of business.
• Be able to follow your plan for business success.

1. Step 1

   Marketing Plan Is Your Roadmap
   
   When you do not have a marketing plan to use as your business road map you start making mistakes or are not consistent. By developing your own marketing plan, you ensure that the marketing part of your business will run smoothly and will not be subject to the "spur of the moment" type decision making. Marketing your business will then be organized.
   
   The return on your investment for making time to draft a marketing plan stays with you as long as you follow and update your plan. These are five reasons that will get you started.

2. Step 2

   1. You need to think about your small business.
   
   The biggest advantage of taking time to draft your small business marketing plan gives you time to think, in depth, about your business. What is your current situation in regards to customers, marketing activities, and ROI? Who is your current competition? Is there anything going on in the industry that can change how you do business? Do you know what your goals are for the next week, month, and year? Without a plan you will not have a road map showing you how to get from now to then.

3. Step 3

   2. A marketing plan organizes all of your marketing objectives.
   
   The second advantage is that a small business marketing plan organizes all your marketing activities you plan on using and eliminates any last minute decisions. You know what you are going to do to market your business over a set time frame.

4. Step 4

   3. You will know how and where to spend your marketing dollars.
   
   By developing a marketing plan for all of your marketing initiatives you will have to decide on how and where you are going to undertake marketing activities. You will know what marketing tactics will be and give you time to think about money, time, and any other resources you will need to carry them out. This ensures that you do not over spend your budget.

5. Step 5

   4. Outline all details for when and where to begin your marketing plan tactics.
   
   When you sit down to draft your marketing plan you will understand details about when to initiate your marketing objectives and tactics. Understand your industry and/or business' cycles. Know when there are busy cycles and slow down periods. While drafting your plan understand those cycles and make informed decisions if you want to increase your marketing activities to generate sales in quiet periods and if you would be able to handle the increased demand if you marketed aggressively during busy periods.

6. Step 6

   5. A small business marketing plan helps to know what ROI to expect and what you want to achieve.
   
   The marketing research you will do for your small business marketing plan ensures that you know the return on investment to expect your marketing activities to achieve. You will need to follow and analyze each campaign and put mechanisms in place to measure the results against expectations.

Tips & Warnings

• The time you spend on drafting your small business marketing plan will benefit your business for as long as you write it for and keep updated. This will continue to guide your business to successful implementation of your marketing campaigns. Take time, upfront, to draft your small business marketing plan and you will have more time to run your business and ensure that your business grows.

author: George Larson

How to Improve Online Marketing Presence

With the surge of Internet commercial activity, online marketing is now a primary part of any marketing plan. Developing and expanding Web promotion will surely demand time and planning. You can improve your online marketing presence by following through on one or more of these ideas.

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Computer
• Internet access

1. Step 1

   Recruit online interviews. Podcasts, webcasts, blogs, RSS feeds and ezines are all avenues for online interviews. Approach publishers who regularly conduct guest interviews, and search websites to explore venues for online interviews (see Resources below).

2. Step 2

   Identify five bloggers in your category. Send them your product as a gift. This strategy exposes your product to influential people in your vertical and gives them the opportunity to try it for free. If they like it, they may review your product in their blogs.

3. Step 3
   
   
   Promote via press.

   Write a press release on newsworthy information. Be sure to include a link to your website or blog in the press release. Finally, move to distribute the release through an online press service (see Resources below).

4. Step 4

   Critique the competition. Study the websites and marketing approaches of your five closest competitors. You will gain an understanding of industry trends. You will also get new insights into promotional strategies for your own business.

author: Catherine Eujon

Rest Yourself and Unrest Your Business Marketing

Online business can be more global than land-based marketing.

ONLINE MARKETING: Online marketing is the new face of doing business. And the tool to this kind of market is the internet. What is internet based- marketing as compared to the traditional way of doing business? An online business is not limited to office-based markets and office-based operations. This is a kind of business that does not necessarily do their operations in a common working area. Online business is not fixated to office hours and not doing business during holidays or weekend. Online marketing operates 24 hours a day 7 days a week 365 days a year.

ONLINE MARKETING: Online marketing is doing business in the internet. Unlike the ordinary business that we had known for years, this kind of marketing is free from office-based operations. You can make business going beyond the business hours and beyond limited business areas.

The downfall of office-based business marketing is in its controlled aspects. It may sound funny at upon first reading, but if you will think about it, the downfall of office-based operations is in its limited office hours and days. On the Internet we can do business anywhere and anytime of the day.

A MARKETING-CRAZY PERSON WILL GO FOR THE INTERNET -BASED MARKETING: Online marketing is your new solution to limited hours of doing business. The internet works 24/7. With or without the manager, it will operate 24 hours in a day and 7 days a week. In other words, it will work forever as long as the internet is your tool. Don't worry, you are not included in this 24/7 operations. As a matter of fact, you can eat, sleep and travel without stopping your operations because of your absence. Putting a halt to your business can not be a choice. Whether you like it or not, you will keep on selling all day long.

The unlimited time that your business has with the internet will bring you a 24 hour market and 24 hour profits. You won't feel the shortage within the so called 'business hours'. Your business will sell, and sell, and sell, more than the business hours in any ordinary business. It is a marketing strategy that is endowed with 24/7 rate of profits whether you have your eyes on it or not.

author: Jessica J Rivera

Successful Business Marketing - What Does Your Marketing Archetype Say About You?

No matter how much a Soul-Preneur™ loves what she does, if she can't figure out how to TALK about her services she'll never attract better, higher paying clients.

When it comes to business marketing, most people brainstorm a billion different tag lines then wonder why none of them sound or feel like "the one."

The problem is all that brainstorming isn't every effective because it's relying on the wrong information to start with. Crafting a tag line-or any of your marketing copy such as sales letters, email promos, flyers and titles-first starts with understanding your unique style and personality.

Okay, sounds good. But, how exactly do you do that?

The best way is to know your "Marketing Archetype." Think of an archetype as a universally-accepted personality that appears in our stories, myths and in the most compelling current marketing campaigns.

A great example is the Hero archetype, put forward so richly and powerfully by the Race for the Cure campaign. Another example is the Teacher archetype of seeking wisdom, beautifully modeled by Oprah.

Every Marketing Archetype has key words and phrases associated with it. Once you know your Marketing Archetype you can quickly and easily create a compelling tag line, Web site and more.

Here are three easy tips on how to use the power of Marketing Archetypes to attract better, higher paying clients. What this means for you is quickly being able to write and talk about what you do in a powerful and authentic way!

Tip #1: What is Your Powerful Story?

No matter which Marketing Archetype you use, your marketing must consistently put forward an emotionally rich story. Do this and you'll authentically draw people into caring about you, what you do and the people you help.

For example, the story theme that is woven throughout all of my marketing is that you can love who you are and what you do, and make great money doing it. My Marketing Archetypes are the Explorer and the Romantic. All of my marketing powerfully speaks to the idea that you must be unique and authentic (that's key for us Explorers) and that you can love what you do and make great money doing it (that's the richness of the Romantic).

Tip #2: Remember That It's Better to Stand Out Than to be Ignored

No matter what your Marketing Archetype, it's vital that you speak powerfully about the gift you're here to share with your clients. Don't let fear or that voice that says, "Who do you think you are?" stop you from being heard in a powerful way.

Tip #3: Reveal Your Clients' Archetypes so You Can Speak Their Language

Once you understand your own Marketing Archetype, you can then easily figure out that of your client, giving you an insight into exactly how receptive they are to certain marketing.

Here's an example: I attract a lot of coaches and I know that coaches are often Alchemist and Artist archetypes. I know exactly what type of language resonates with them best. Words such as "transform, magic, instant, idea and create" really speak to Alchemists and Artists, so I make sure to weave those words into my writing. This way, I'm speaking my truth in a way that goes straight into their hearts.

Your marketing archetype is a window to a new language you can quickly use, and a window into creating powerful affinity with your clients.

Success in business is all about relationships, trust and a deep connection with your clients. Marketing Archetypes is a powerful way to build those relationships quickly and authentically, and in any form of media. The sooner you discover what yours is the quicker you'll be enjoying the gift of attracting the better, higher-paying clients you love.

And, if you want to get personal training from me on what your Marketing Archetype is and how to use this powerful system with your clients, watch your inbox for details about my upcoming new certification program! I'll share how you can learn more in just a few days.

by: K Summerhawk

Home Business Online Marketing Tools and Ideas

There are so many home business online marketing tools available today, that many experienced online marketers are not sure where to go and anyone new is often totally confused and eventually quit. This article is for anyone who is still not sure which way to go, and or have no idea where to begin.

The first thing you must know is that anyone can be highly successful with marketing online regardless of what strategy you choose to use, but you must realize that you must become really good at one of them,and fairly well at another one, and knowledgeable in four or five. But there is normally the problem most people become knowledgeable in five, six or seven while never becoming good in any and great in none.

For example article marketing is one of the best ways to drive traffic thousands of visitors to your site each and every month but again most never learn to place proper keywords into their articles therefore the only average less than 100 people reading their really great article month after month. But if they had bothered to learn about looking up keywords and a few other tools that same article would be read thousands of times each and every month and unfortunately to many times those that show you how to write articles won't show you anything about how to get those articles read.

Another example will be viral marketing which is just creating ebooks and giving them away with your links in them. This in not hard and it's free, there are so many places to do this online at and give you simple step by step instructions. If you do this once a week you will for sure generate more than enough traffic with a matter of days. And there are many websites that you can go on to give away your free ebook for those that are looking for your information.

Finally it does not matter what you are selling online it is all about marketing techniques, whatever you choose you must become good at it. It may take some time depending how much time you can put into it on a daily basis, if you can only put in a couple of hours per week i would strongly suggest only marketing one way only. Now on the other hand if you want to dedicate yourself to your business 20 or more hours per week go for two or three marketing techniques and stick with them until they produce sale on a regular consistent basis. But whatever you do do not try doing any more than three marketing techniques otherwise you will not give yourself a chance to becoming really good at any of them.

It's possible. It's easy. It's staring you right in the face.

Therefore, it is perfectly possible for you to start a profitable business based on affiliate marketing, MLM or direct sales, but honestly, if you really want to make money you have to forget about easy money and start thinking about learning and working hard at least in you early stages.

You may only make 2 sales in your first weeks, but guess what, that is $50 you did not have before you started, and that's 2 sales closer to quitting your job and working for yourself.

author: Dale Dupree