Who is your target audience? This starts with you deciding who is your A-grade customer (versus B, C or D grade customers). Perhaps your A-grade customer is one that’s easy to work with, pay immediately, respect you and your team, don’t push you around etc.
Start by thinking about what market segment would you work for (perhaps there are a few). Would it be residential customers, commercial, industrial etc.? And who is the actual person you deal with? The one that makes the decisions to go ahead with work?
When you’ve answered this question, think about just one of those market segments and the specific person you would be dealing with. This single person is the ‘who’, the target market, what we call the ‘avatar’, that you want to attract.
This is the single person you should be speaking to when you do all your marketing. That is, if you want to attract this type of customer every single time.
If you want your marketing and brand messages to be effective at all, you need to go those extra steps to really know your customers better.
You need to be intimately familiar with their demographic and psychographic qualities. Not just their age, where they live, how much they earn, but also what they hate about your industry, their values, their fears and frustrations, to name a few. You also need to get clear about what products/services they predominately use within your business. No doubt the most profitable sectors. In the 3 Ms of marketing, this is called the market.
When you know this well, you will know how to speak to them, with them, how to engage their interest. This is the message. The words you chose, the images that feature and the offers you place before them.
With your target audience clear in your mind, you’ll have a pretty good idea of where to find them. What magazines they read, what social media they play with during and after work. In the 3Ms of marketing, this part is media. Where you would place any advertising to attract your target audience in the first place. For example, it’s highly unlikely you’ll place an ad on LinkedIn if you’re keen to attract a 40-year old female home owner in the residential market.
The 3Ms of Marketing; Market, Message, Media, are critically important to your trade business.
Here are 6 benefits of why knowing your target audience:
1. Actively market to your target audience that has the most potential
‘What you focus on grows’ as the saying goes.Same for your marketing. If you have your target audience in mind when you plan and activate your marketing plan, you’ll communicate in the right media, with the right message speaking directly to the right market.
2. Increase conversion
The phone will ring more with pre-qualified customers (your A-grade customer) as they have already connected with the message you communicated. It’s important to continue this throughout the sales pipeline – when you answer the phone and the words you use in your script, for example, need to still speak in the same way (for example: don’t sound distant and aloof if you been communicating ‘care’). The likelihood of them saying ‘yes’ to work is more likely.
3. Makes your day stress free
When you have a sales pipeline that works seamlessly, where the job flows from ‘The Call’, to ‘Show Up’, to ‘The Quote’ and then to ‘Do Job’ in the language of that one single Avatar, then your day is simply fun again. You know what steps to follow, what words to use, what text/emails to send to ensure the customer has an exceptional experience with your company. You literally don’t have to think. Mistakes are a thing of the past and your day is enjoyable. Efficiency is bliss.
4. Increase profit
Your A-grade customer are no doubt a far more profitable market segment than those you are currently working for. Imagine now that you have 80,90% of this target audience, instead of a current 50%. An improvement in profit will prevail.
5. Longer lasting customers
If your customer feels like you really ‘get them’, you speak their language, and you are receptive to their needs, they won’t be going anywhere… anytime they need a <insert your trade> your company name will immediately come to mind. The customer life time will increase which helps to build brand goodwill.
6. Assist with future product/service development
When you understand your customer well (a form of research) it is easy to recognise or pre-empt what else they need. This can assist with product and/or service development to cater and hence greatly improve market share.
Take the time to understand your target audience well. Not only will you thank us for it, so will your bank account!
What’s next?
- Join our Kick-Ass Tradies Facebook Group, for access to trade business specific conversations, tips and resources, plus a like-minded community of tradies.
- Book a 15-minute Game Plan Call with Andy, owner of Dr. DRiP plumbing and co-founder of Lifestyle Tradie, to clarify your priorities and get clear action steps.
