3 Simple Steps for Better Marketing Results by Defining Your Ideal Target Market

Buyer Persona

 

Do you want to see more results in your marketing campaigns? Follow the three steps below and watch your marketing return on investments increase.

Every marketing book mentions that you need to identify your target market. The problem with this is that most of these books don’t give you an easy way to define that ideal target market. Instead, they suggest you to do complex studies and research on your customers. This research is a great way to understand your clients in detail. The problem, however, is that most small businesses don’t have the resources to come up with this detailed and costly research.

To make it easier for you, below I share with you three simple steps that will help you have a very good understanding of your ideal target market.

1. Select your best clients.

- The first step is to define which customers bring you more profit and positive reviews. These are the clients that spend more money and, at the same time, invite their friends to your shop and/or leave positive feedback through your social media platforms.

2. Define their demographics and behaviors.

- Now that you have made a list of your best clients, study their demographics (age, gender, income, etc.) and understand why these people consume your products. What are the reasons they come to your shop to buy your products? Another aspect that you should study is if they have any other interests in common (ex: They all like to watch football.), so you could also engage with them in other experiences without just selling them your products.

3. Create your ideal client persona.

- The third and last stage is where you will combine the information above and create a modeled representation of your ideal client. Give him/her a name, age, what drives him/her to your shop, along with any other interests and behaviors they have. Please see the attached image as an example.

After you have done this exercise, every time you write an email, a Facebook post, or a newspaper ad to promote your products, look at your ideal client persona file and address it to him like he were a real person. I guarantee you that this will bring you more marketing return on investment.

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Why Great Ideas Are a Problem for Building a Successful Business

business ideaIf you are very creative and full of revolutionary ideas, be careful. It’s more than likely that they won’t take you much further in your professional life than you already are. Keep reading if you would like to know why making your clients’ lives easier by helping them in their small challenges is a much easier and more profitable bet, than inventing that new revolutionary product you have in mind.

Just think about shampoo. Before shampoo was invented, people used a combination of soaps, perfumes, and oils to treat their hair so it would smell nice and look clean. Then in 1898, Hans Schwarzkopf, a chemist from Berlin, developed a water-soluble powder shampoo that mixed those same soaps, perfumes, and oils. His product became so popular that he quickly started selling his powder to all the local drugstores in Berlin.

So, if you can make your target market life easier, you will get customers ready to buy your “solution” quicker without having to spend large amounts of money in marketing. If you are dreaming of developing the next great invention, even if it really is great, you will still take a large financial risk in order to communicate and explain your invention to the market.

What are your customers’ challenges? Have you ever taken the time to ask them?

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Why You Should Start Your Business Today Without Fearing the Competition

competitionAre you afraid of the competition? Don’t be! You should start your business where the competition exists. Don’t agree? Keep reading, and I will explain you why.

Would you like to open a casino in Macau? As you may know, there are plenty of casinos around the city of Macau; yet, many would like to open new casino properties. Why? If people are already gambling and spending money on a product or service, then two-thirds of the work is already done. They already understand and value your business idea, products, and services.

So, if you are feeling that this is the right time to start your own business, go ahead and use the leverage from the already existing competitors’ efforts in creating a need in your kind of product.

To start, write down your business plan with a clear picture of what will make your product significantly different and better than the competition’s, as well as what will make your product shine above the rest in the eyes of your target market.

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3 Simple Steps to Having a Successful Marketing Strategy

3 Steps of Marketing“Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” —The Art of War, Sun Tzu

We need to do more marketing promotions! We need more business! This is a “classic” in all the Macau corporations that lack in marketing strategy.

Marketing is not a punctual method to bring you more business when you are not achieving your desired sales budgets. Marketing is a continuous process that has well-defined core goals, and all the marketing promotions you develop during the year should “push” you in your goals’ direction.

The easiest and simplest way to define your marketing strategy follows 3 steps:

- Decide who matters/who your ideal client is. When you have defined your ideal client, all your marketing promotions should focus on the best product/service in the market for that segment.

- Be different. Make sure you have something significantly different and better in the “eyes” of your target market. This differentiation could be regarding the product qualities, service standards, business location, pricing, etc., but it must be significantly better in your customer’s mind that will make them select your product instead of the competition’s product or services.

- Merge the two points above, and decide on your marketing strategy. Your marketing strategy should attract your ideal clients to consume your products by promoting and sharing your significant difference.

It is very simple and the core of marketing, but I really see a lot of companies that don’t have an ideal client base or well-defined product differentiation.

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Why You Should Serve Dopamine at Your Restaurant

Dopamine fotoDopamine is the neurotransmitter of desire. What else should you serve to your customers besides the desire to patronize your restaurant?

Dopamine guides humans to action, and it takes much less than half a second for the desire of action to happen. When you see a customer coming into your restaurant curious, excited, and interested in your products, it is dopamine that is moving him/her. If you want to see high levels of dopamine, you can visit a casino and observe the gamblers. Many of them are releasing high levels of dopamine by the desire to win the big bet.

How do you get more dopamine flowing in your customers’ brains? You must violate your customers’ expectations in a pleasant way.

How do you do this? In the restaurant business, the easiest way to create dopamine is when you simply open your restaurant. Everyone wants to try it. However, when your restaurant has been open for a longer period of time, you will need to keep making pleasant changes and introducing new items inside your restaurant to keep high levels of dopamine triggered in your patrons.

In summary, if you want your target market’s full attention and have the ability to erase your competition’s hold on potential customers, you need to keep constantly introducing novelty to your restaurant.

What was your last new addition or change you made in your restaurant? Did it create a dopamine release in your clients?

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Six Restaurant Marketing Steps That Drive Results

MarketingBoardMost marketers make their profit by “selling” their hot ideas of the month to their leads (ex: You need to buy Facebook ads!). These are easy ways for marketers to make a quick sale, but these quick and miracle strategies don’t really provide a good long-term return on investment. These tactical activities, if well “designed,” will get your target market attention and help you on stage two of the successful restaurant marketing cycle described below:

1. The potential customer has the desire/need to go out and have a meal.

2. This same potential customer hears about your restaurant and has a good first impression. This first impression can be obtained by a referral, an online visit to your website/Facebook page, a Google search on restaurants in his area, etc.

3. He decides he should try and visit your restaurant.

4. He visits your restaurant to experience your product. You offered him a remarkable experience.

5. He decides he must come back and invite his friends and family (Note: In this case, his/her friends jump to step 4 without the need to experience steps 1, 2, and 3.).

6. He talks good about his/her experience online and offline to his friends and personal contacts (Note: These friends and contacts start on step 3.).

Looks too complicated? It isn’t! You just need to focus on steps 2 and 4, and the others will happen automatically.

Are you following a similar marketing strategy? Does it work?

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