The law of repulsion? Don’t I want to attract customers?
Yes, you do want to attract your target market and you do want to build a business brand that appeals to them. But you don’t want to waste your efforts attracting customers that don’t really buy into your brand and those that will never become the driving force of your sales. If you’re doing this; then you haven’t truly defined your target market, your niche or your business brand. When you have a strong brand and a strong business offering; you do repel some of the market.
A powerful business brand has a clearly defined target market and a clearly defined niche. When you attract a certain customer, when you really know what you’re offering and the value of your business and brand; then you can truly build a targeted and impactful business and marketing strategy. You’ll know what to focus on to make your business offering appealing and you’ll learn what to work on to make your business grow.
You’ve probably heard a lot about target markets and niches if you’re thinking about starting your own business. But target market and niche are not interchangeable terms, even though they do overlap.
Your target market is the group of customers that may want to buy your product or service. If you’re an event organiser; your target market might include event-venue hosts, companies that host seminars or brides-to-be. You must research to identify who these potential customers are. You have to identify their demographics (things like age, gender, income, education, region etc) and their psychographics (things like their values, interests, lifestyle and behaviors.)
Your niche is the specific type of service you offer, how you do what you do, what makes you unique: it is your specialisation. For instance, perhaps you only deal in outdoor events or luxury locations, perhaps you have a 24-hour on-call team, or have the inside advantage with different vendors or venues, or specialise in deflecting invasive in-laws for a bride-to-be!
Target market research is vital but defining your niche is even more important. This is how you are ultimately unique. This is how you are completely different than your competitors so that you have no competition. This is how you are the expert, this is what makes your business valuable, and this is the basis of your business brand.
Most people find defining their target market pretty difficult. They worry about defining their customers so narrowly that they won’t capture enough of the market to be successful. But, let me share a secret to business success and growth: 20 per cent of your customers drive 80 per cent of your sales.
You want to appeal to these 20% and you don’t want to get off-track working to appeal to those other 80 per cent. You want to repel them. You don’t want to base your business offering and marketing strategy on everyone that might want what you have to offer and might be a potential customer. This is a losing strategy. Then you’re trying to be everything to everyone and end up being nothing to anyone.
Understanding your niche means understanding what you are uniquely qualified to do. It means understanding your strengths, your personality, and your reasons for doing what you do.
Why?
Because people buy for emotional reasons: not logical ones.
You might offer the very thing that people need, the very thing that will solve all of their problems, the best and brightest idea. But, if your brand doesn’t appeal to them, if you don’t represent your business and yourself in a way that appeals to them and what they want to be associated with, then you will not succeed.
So, narrowing down your niche entails making your business represent you: making your business brand an extension of you. Then, the people that identify with you and your brand become your best customers and the ones that do your marketing for you. They become your brand ambassadors.
It’s scary to limit your target market in this way. But it is impactful and powerful. Not only will you be successful with your unique appeal initially, but you will then learn so much about what you should build on to grow.
While you may be under impression that you know your target market and niche very well, you will likely be surprised to find out that you have no idea! It’s a very important but deceptively simple concept and unfortunately most people just don’t understand how to apply it to their business.
The writer is founder of Wealth Dynamics Unlimited. She can be reached at oksana@academiaofhumanpotential.com or www.academiaofhumanpotential.com. Views expressed are her own and do not reflect the newspaper’s policy.
