Guest post by Lara Galloway, The Mom Biz Coach
www.mombizcoach.com/blog

If you’re like many of the work-at-home-moms and mompreneurs I know and coach, you probably got into business for yourself despite your lack of an MBA in marketing. So figuring out how to get people to buy what you sell can be a bit like explaining what galaxies are and where they exist in time and space to an inquisitive seven-year-old.

I don’t have an MBA, either, but I’ve learned a lot from the school of “learning by doing.” Here is the methodology I teach my mom entrepreneurs to use to get more clients and make more money, without spending much of their money or time.

Make Sure Your Niche Is Narrow Enough

Most of the mom entrepreneurs who hire me as their coach are extremely resistant to choosing a narrow niche market. They want to market themselves to “moms” or to “parents” or to “middle-aged women” or “empty-nesters.” It’s always better to be the big fish in a smaller pond (“I coach mompreneurs who have been in business less than five years and are raising small children”) than a tiny fish in a big pond (“I’m a business coach for entrepreneurs.”). Simply put, you can make a much bigger splash in a little pond and get visibility you would be hard-pressed to earn in the big pond.

Identify Your Ideal Client

Once you have a narrow niche, you can focus on the individuals in it. Think of your ideal clients. What do they read? What do they spend money on? Where do they shop? Do they buy for themselves or for family members? Do they hold the purse strings? Do they make enough money to afford your product/services? Are they the type people who already value what you have to offer?

Identify Their Top Challenges and Needs

Now, with as specific a person in mind as you can muster, think about their life. What’s good about it? What’s not? What do they keep tolerating? What drives them nuts? What would make their life better, easier, more fun?  If you can identify their biggest problems, then you can tailor your products and services to solve them. People want to feel better, be happier, live longer, be healthier, etc. What can you and your business do to help them with this?

Create Products and Services That Solve Their Problems

Knowing this, you’ll be on your way to creating valuable content in the form of products and services your clients will willingly pay for. You’ve tailored your business solutions to meet their top needs and challenges. This isn’t just marketing—you’re listening to your market, doing market research within your specific niche, and you’re creating solutions to their problems. Your clients will pay for people and things that make their problems go away. With this understanding of your client’s needs, you’re well on the path to creating a great marketing funnel.

Go Where They Are and Share Your Powerful Message

You may be wondering why the title of this post is “How to Reach Your Target Market” when I haven’t talked at all about traditional methods and venues for finding clients. That’s not an oversight; I promise. Now that you’ve customized your offerings and made them solutions to your ideal customer’s problems, you’re ready to reach out and start attracting them to you. I’ve said many times before, “I’d rather attract my clients to me than have to go hunting for them.”  Show up/present yourself, your business and your marketing message to them where they are (in the print publications they read, in the blogs to which they subscribe, in the organizations to which they belong). Do so in a way that shows you know who they are, what they need, and that you understand them.  Saying: “I help families and children who struggle with chronic problems like headaches, ear infections and dizziness” is much more powerful than “I’m a chiropractor.”

Learning how to reach your target market isn’t rocket science, but there is definitely a strategy involved. Entrepreneurs who truly understand their ideal clients and who learn how to create solutions to their customers’ needs will have little trouble growing their businesses!

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