Build Your Business - Build your Market

Become a customer focused business. This is done by always considering the benefits of your product or service, not the features. This may mean you need pictures and graphics to communicate effectively with your market. Perhaps your market is interested in statistics and interesting facts. Maybe they engage best with interesting stories or testimonials. Whatever you do, your market must be the priority in your graphic and web design solutions.

When planning to get your graphic and web material designed there are some simple questions you should ask yourself if you want to maximise the return on investment. Answering these questions will provide the information you need to create effective material. You will avoid wasting time and money trying to communicate to everybody. It is more efficient investing your budget in clearly targeted prospects as opposed to generalising. These questions are simple yet they can have a profound impact on your bottom line. These questions all start with who, what, where, why, when and how. When examining your market if the questions you ask yourself start with these key words you will be headed in the right direction for success.

If you operate in the SME market, targeted marketing is vital to success. Targeted graphic and web design will save money on marketing costs and generate improved returns from your investment. If you had a database of 2,000 prospects but are not able to successfully market to all of these, segment your market and target one segment at a time. Before long, you will discover what target market is most profitable and you will be able to invest more into targeting that market.

Factors to consider when defining your target market are the broad demographics such as income, location, children, gender, age, relationships, hobbies and interests. This information will help you to discover your most likely buyers. These most likely buyers are often your best target market, but not always. It may be that many other businesses are competing in that area. You should also consider which target market has not been tapped to its full potential.

Understanding why customers buy from you will improve your bottom-line. Customers want to know what’s in it for them. Finding out what your target market wants involves finding out exactly what will motivate them to buy your products or services.

People spend based on their emotions and the perceived benefits of the product or service. How does your product or service make them feel? How does not having your product or service make them feel? Emotions are the strongest motivator for any prospect. Our emotions make us want to buy and the rational mind creates reasons why we should buy. It’s important to engage your prospects on an emotional level. Understanding the benefits and the emotions associated with those benefits will enable you to become relevant and gain your prospects’ interest. This information will also help you classify your target market into more closely defined niche markets.

A niche market opportunity exists where there is a common motivation your prospects feel that causes them to be interested in your products or services. The first step is to find what niche market is most profitable for your business. If you target a defined niche market, you will find that you will get a bigger response than if you target a broad market.

If you want your graphic and web design to succeed, define and target a niche market. Understand the emotional motivation behind your niche and clearly express how your product or service will benefit them. This will allow you to have a clear direction in your graphic and web design. Instead of marketing broadly, in your next promotion, try being specific. You may be surprised by the response generated by applying this simple but effective principle.

When you understand your market, it’s time to start prospecting. To do this successfully you will need a database.