Defining and understanding your target market is one of the most fundamental steps of your marketing strategy in order to be successful online.

Quick hint: your target market is not ‘everyone’. Your task as a business owner is to clearly define and identify a niche so you can dominate it.

Let’s see if you can answer these simple questions for me:

1)  How well do you know your clients?

2)  Who specifically are you trying to sell to?

3)  What specific problem are you solving to them?

If you were not able to answer these questions immediately, then keep reading. The better you understand your target market – your clients and customers- the better you will be able to communicate with them and target them with relevant content, messaging, ads, etc.

Therefore, understanding your target market is key to the long-term success of your business.

Below I’ve included 6 simple steps that will help you identify your target market.

Step #1 Understand What Specific Problems You Solve To Your Customers

This step is detrimental as you always first need to consider that your products or services must solve a specific problem or pain point your clients are currently facing. The cold truth is that if you are not helping them sort out any particular problem they are facing, they don’t actually need you.

Sometimes you can solve more than one problem to your clients, as long as the problems are related.

For instance, in my case, my ideal customers have one of the following problems:

• They don’t have an online presence for their business and they need one. The information out there is confusing and they need some clarification and guidance from my end;
• Their current website is not converting, nor bringing any quality leads. They feel a bit overwhelmed with the digital marketing and SEO and they need someone to manage and run their website;
• They are caught in the day-to-day of their business and need some help in planning their online marketing strategy in order to grow their business.

These issues are quite related, as they are all related to websites and online marketing. However, it’s quite unlucky that all of my clients have all of these problems.

Step #2 Have A Clear Picture In Mind Of Your Target Customer

Make a list of all the different customers that suffer from the problems you actually solve. Once you have done that, you can then start to create a clear picture in your mind of these customers. Who buys your products?

What is their demographics? Where and how can you reach them? Where do they shop, are they predominantly online or offline? Do they read any particular magazine?

What do they do? Do they have a specific career field or related field? Are they currently studying or are they retired? Are they employees, entrepreneurs or self-employed?

Are they married? Are they male or female? Are they teenagers, adults, parents or grandparents?

Do they play any particular sport? The more you know about them, the better you will be able to serve them.

What specific problem do they have that your service or product will help them solve?

Step #3 Wants and Needs

Ask yourself other questions such as what are their specific wants and needs? What are the problems they want a solution for?

What are their pain points, fears, and frustrations related to this market?

What are their pain points and frustrations around finding these products or services?

Step #4 Verify Your Competition

Now that you understand who your ideal customer is, it’s time to look at your competition.

Who are they? How are they marketing their services? What is their unique selling proposition (USP)?

Why are customers choosing them over your business, what service/product are they promoting, etc?

This analysis will give you a better understanding of what may be already be working and what strategies you may consider ‘emulating’ in order to fast-track your success online.

Step #5 Focus Your Solution For Your Ideal Target Customer

Once you are able to describe and understand who your ideal client is, what specific problem they are currently facing and how you can help them sort it out, the better you will serve them.

This will then allow you to direct your publicity and advertising to your specific target audience, hence improving your overall conversion rates.

The better your conversion rates, the higher your profits and margins for your business.

What would a 30% or more increase in your conversion look for your business without having to spend too much money on ads?

Having a proper website that is fully optimised and designed to convert will ensure you can reap the rewards of your online strategy and increase your income streams.