A business that goes online has the added challenge of addressing visitors and customers from all over the world. Everything from communicating the basics (like the purpose of its existence) to how its products work or where they can be found, can pose a huge challenge.
But, what is perhaps the biggest challenge is putting a lot of effort into reaching a wider audience only to find out that they have next to zero interest in whatever it is the businesses have to offer.
Thus, businesses, small or big, should know how to focus their marketing and sales efforts on the exact demographic that they need to cater to. In fact, taking the time to identify these potential customers will help shrink the budget that will eventually be needed to maximize the end results: increasing sales and profits.
The Advantages
Knowing who you are catering to helps with making sure you produce or sell the right amount of stuff without wasting your products or having to waste money to store it in case you are overstocked. You can also determine what your price is going to be as you might need to lower your prices in countries that don’t have many people that can afford it.
When it comes to technology, knowing who you are catering to helps you with everything from the language(s) that you are going to use on your website and the languages your tech support needs to speak/understand to where you are going to have your web hosting servers located – it wouldn’t make sense to have your website and/or database hosted in Europe when your target market is located in Australia. It will also make it easier for you to plan your SEO campaign, and you will know how to design your whole website (themes, layouts, functions, etc.) so your visitors can use it efficiently.
The How
Now, how can small businesses identify their target audiences or markets? Well, here are a few pointers:
- What are you offering?
Have a close look at your product and/or service. What are its strong features? What is its strong selling point? Why should people choose you over your competitors?
- What extras do you offer?
What comes with your offering? We are talking about extras here: do you have a free delivery service? Do you have “buy two get, one free” offers? Do you have guarantees and/or warranties?
- Define your Customer
Create the ideal customer based on two distinct profiles: demographic (age, gender, income, location, etc.) and psychographic (hobbies, interests, preferences, attitudes, etc.).
Once you have covered these points send out feelers to these people. Ship free samples or give them limited-time offers and see how they respond to being your customers. Keep an eye out for irregularities in the process: are there any breaks in the links between you and the customers? Do you see any new expenses you hadn’t known about before? Are the customers you have targeted happy with what you have given them? Are they in fact the right customers to begin with?
The problems identified at this stage should be corrected or eliminated now because once you switch to regular delivery they are only going to get magnified. If you have to, go back to the previous steps and redo everything.
Once everything has been smoothed out, move on to:
Look Into Your Business Itself
Now that you have gotten the target in sight it is time to look at your business process. You will be doing this because you want to add even more of an edge, to make sure you are giving everything you possibly can towards ensuring competitive success.
Find your particular area of expertise and build on it. It could be your knowledge of the language and cultural preferences of a certain people or the fact that you have local assets that no one else has (yet) on the ground.
Even if you can work in the whole country, start out by pinpointing one city or a corner of a country to start with.
Add all these into your marketing package to create your final target audience and market.
Ok, then what?
Now that you have your final target it is time to gear up towards reaching or supplying it. It is time to look at your delivery mechanism: your website.
- As mentioned earlier, reduce loading times by hosting your site on server located nearest to your market.
- Apply unique characteristics that the region may require (for example, in Arab countries, your buttons should be on the left side of the page where people can click on them after reading a sentence left to right).
- Design your site so that it isn’t offensive to the culture. Make your site appealing to the local eye.
- Try to use local dialects and accommodate customs into how you address your visitors.
Once you’re done it’s time to get down to business. Release your products and gauge its progress over a period of time. If things go as planned, seek ways to improve it. Otherwise, start from the top.
Good Luck!
