What are the three barriers that stop us targeting our marketing for success?
I want to grow my/our business, but I’m not sure where to start.
If this sounds like you, take heart – you’re in an exclusive club of 95% of small business owners and marketers I talk to. In this post, I’ll address the three most common reasons we don’t target – even when we know we should!
Over 12 years in marketing, I’ve seen how a lack of targeting trips a lot of us up and stunts our growth. From start-ups to big-brand businesses looking to grow, it really does happen to the best of us!
What’s going on?
In my experience, although most founders and marketers accept the wisdom of targeting their marketing to a well-defined customer, they’re not doing it for one of three reasons:
- Paddling furiously: We start our businesses with a plan. But a year, two, ten in, we’re often still paddling furiously to get new business in. We lose our way, or perhaps we never defined it in the first place
- Fear of missing out: Fear is a common and understandable barrier for small businesses. We worry about putting any potential customers off buying from us so we try to keep ourselves open to everyone
- Lack of agreement: Management teams can be surprisingly varied in who they think the customer is or should be. This can make for mixed messages that will erode trust in our businesses
When we don’t target effectively, our messaging is so generic that it doesn’t resonate and convert. We can’t select appropriate cost-effective marketing channels because we’re trying to be everywhere for everyone, so we waste marketing budget. We experience high churn.
Overcoming the barriers
If this is resonating with you, I have good news! We have a practical workshop that you can book onto today, where I’ll take you through an easy journey to pinpoint your ideal customer, so you can grow your business.
Written by Course Leader Neina Sheldon
She is a professionally qualified marketer and copywriter, with over 12-years experience in brand and agency roles, working with companies from a broad range of sectors including education, retail, travel, B2B professional services and more. She loves to bang the drum for the customer and is happiest when she has the opportunity to use customer insights to illuminate areas of potential for brands and to strategically plan for their improved performance.
Pinpoint your dream customer is a 1-day workshop happening on Wednesday 17th October that will help you define your target market to improve your focus and enable more effective, easier marketing by pinpointing your dream customer. To book a place on this course just email us and we’ll sort out the rest from there.
