When trying to figure out what group of people you'll market to, take the time to use these helpful tools for your research, and build a really strong foundation for a great, responsive target group.
There are many reasons why we all need to spend the time, at the beginning of a new business, to figure out the main group of people we're going to approach.
But it's equally important to constantly monitor your target group as your business evolves, grows and changes - because you'll most likely need to make adjustments and refine your target group or niche.
When trying to figure out what group of people you'll market to, you pretty well have all the tools you need at your fingertips - with the internet.
It's really all about taking some time and researching:
- popular keywords
- what people search for
- areas of interest and focus
- what books people are buying
- what people are writing about
- what other businesses are doing
- what your clients and customers are doing
- what your peers are doing
If you don't have clients yet or don't know a lot about your target group, then do some research on anything that talks about people in your niche or target group. For example:
* competitors' websites
* magazines (online and offline)
* trade publications and websites
* association publications and websites
* http://www.trendwatching.com - watch for trends that are just emerging or just about to emerge
* http://www.groups.google.com/ -' find out how many groups there are discussing "your" subject
* do this search: +key word +free +filetype:pdf - will show how many free PDF downloads exist about your subject
* http://www.wordtracker.com - shows you what keywords and phrases people are using to search online
* http://www.spacky.com/ - put in your keyword phrase and it will tell you how many searches are done on average every month for Google, Yahoo and Microsoft network
* see what's selling by searching eBay, Amazon (check out Amazon sales rank)
* http://www.magazines.com lists their top 10 magazine titles in the upper left-hand corner of the homepage so you can see what topics are hot right now
* Google Keyword Metrics will tell you what keywords people are paying for on Google Adwords (pay-per-click ad service).
Once you've done the research, you need to spend time thinking and mulling over the information. You need to figure out how what people need, want and are interested in intersects with what you enjoy, are good at, have experience in, and can build and offer products and/or services around.
Once you can "marry" what you do with what people want, then you've got a really strong foundation for a great, responsive target group.
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