Improving Sales Performance
  • Home
  • Frameworks
  • Solutions
    • Consulting & Coaching
    • Workshops & Events
    • Peer Groups
  • Resources
    • Blog
    • Books and Newsletter
    • Worksheets, Webinars, Ebooks
  • About
    • Our Founder
    • Our Team
    • Testimonials
  • Contact

3 SIgns You Might be Targeting the Wrong Audience - And How to fix it

11/1/2018

 
Red person represents the challenge of finding your target audience in a sea of people.
Your sales team seems to be doing everything right. You know what you offer, what value you provide and how those attributes align. But you just aren’t seeing the lead velocity you want.

Are you running paid search campaigns and finding the leads are a poor fit for your business, or that your sponsored ads are showing up in the wrong locations? Are your sales teams having meetings with the right people? Maybe they bring you along to the meetings and when you get there you realize the lead will never buy your service. Do you get the feeling when you’re interacting with leads that something isn’t quite right?

These breakdowns may indicate that you haven’t found the perfect product-market fit. Here are some signs you might not be targeting the right audience — and what to do about it.

Your Target Audience is Anyone Who Walks in the Door. 
You’re passionate about your offerings. You have no doubt that they could benefit a wide variety of people. Are you harder pressed to think of who you don’t want to contact than who you do? If that’s the case, your target audience might not be targeted enough.

Imagine you’re shopping for a gift for a teenager. Try and picture what you’d get that teenager. Tricky, isn’t it? Without knowing anything about the person except their age — not their gender, their location, their interests, their needs — it’s really difficult to buy an appropriate gift for them.

You might be thinking, "Ok, but what about a car?" Any teenager wants a car! And since our offerings are so awesome, anyone will want them.

Not so fast. Even if your products or services could benefit anyone, not everyone will really resonate with the value you’re providing or be drawn in enough to listen to your message.

Consider a small electric car and a full-size pickup truck. Neither is better than the other. They are just each aligned to audiences with completely different experiences and lifestyles. So their target audiences are completely different, too: an eco-conscious single mother with a tiny car budget for her teen daughter vs. a father whose teen son will use the truck to help with their family landscaping business.

Plus, if you’re casting too wide of a net, you and your team are wasting a lot of energy sorting through the flotsam and jetsam that you pull in. You may catch a fish or two, but not before discarding the tin can, the lost shoe, the spare bicycle wheel. And, if you do catch that big fish, you won’t know if it was because you were fishing in the right area or if you just got lucky.

On the other hand, if you research where a particular type of fish hangs out, go there and bait specifically for that fish, you can tie your success to your intentional efforts and repeat it in the future.

Raise the bar from “anyone with a bank account” to some really specific criteria that will guide you and your sales team to client gold. Examine these three criteria to identify your target audience. 
  • Industry – What industry is the best fit for your offerings? Imagine you sell high-tech gloves that automatically adjust to external temperatures. All of Chicago may want your product in the winter. But, for a reliable source of clientele, dig deeper -think professional skiers, construction workers, ice skating instructors.
  • Demographics – What is the age, gender, location and other basic identifying information of the audience that will most benefit from your offerings?
  • Psychographics – What are your target audience’s habits, interests and values? These run a little deeper than dry demographics.

You aren’t Finding Leads in the Places you Thought They’d Be.
You’ve got your industry, demographics and psychographics down, and you’re hot on your target audience’s trail. You’ve talked to your sales team, and you’ve heard that the group you’re looking for lives on LinkedIn. So, you do some targeted outreach, even join some professional groups on the platform, and nothing manifests. Sure, you have some good conversations, but deals-wise, you’re still coming up empty.

If your target audience isn’t showing up where you expected, it’s time to do a bit more research. Here's how. 
  • Talk to your existing customers and ask them where their favorite industry watering holes are. Where do they go for information?
  • Hold informational interviews with a few people who would be ideal clients for you. Even if these meetings don’t turn into new business, you can get valuable information on the best places to turn to find your next big sale.
  • Hit the trade shows, especially the smaller, more targeted ones. Chat with attendees and really dig into their interests and needs.
  • Research the social accounts your competitors follow. Pay attention to who they retweet, repost and respond to.
  • Read up on industry blogs and journals to get inside information and to understand how to maximize your outreach efforts.

Your Target Audience Isn’t Engaged.
But, maybe you’ve done all of that. You’ve found the right people in the right places, and you’ve brought them to your door. And maybe they take a peek in, explore your website, read an email or two, and then wander away.

If you’ve found your ideal clients and they’re nibbling but swimming away, what you’re offering might not be attractive enough to hook them. In this case, you may want to take a look at your messaging. Ask these three questions. 
  • Does your message speak to your target audience’s challenges, needs and wants? If you draw a lead in with a solid email or ad, and then they bounce away from your website within a few seconds, it’s likely you aren’t answering the need that drove them to click. An ad with the headline “Does your construction team have the winter blues?” might draw your potential clients into your glove company’s website. But if the page they visit only discusses how fantastic your company is, they’ll bounce away because their expectations weren’t met.
  • Does it reach them at the right time in the buyer’s journey? If your targeted outreach gets nothing but crickets in response, your message might not match up to the timing of their needs or where they are in their decision process. If you send a few informative blog posts to a list of ski instructors raising their awareness about the effects of cold temperature on reaction times, you may be preaching to the choir. They are well aware that their team needs high-tech gloves and other winter gear to prevent sluggish runs. They will be looking for more solutions-focused messaging.
  • Does it tell their story? If your leads don’t find themselves in your messaging, you may be losing them. You may have identified the who, what, where and how of your target audience, but you need to dig deeper into the why. What motivates them? Beyond industry, demographics and psychographics, what story will help them see themselves using your offerings? To know your audience on this level, try building out a persona.

So, there you have it — 3 key ways to tell if you don’t quite have a handle on your target audience. Looking for more on finding that perfect product-market fit? Check out our video on target audience and this target audience worksheet you can discuss with your team.

Comments are closed.

    Meet  Me

    Picture
    I’m Karl Becker and I help individuals and organizations improve how they sell. My focus is on clear, concise, actionable solutions.

    In short, I'll show you how to increase performance and generate more revenue.

    This blog shares approaches, tools, and ideas that I have seen create success.

    If you’re interested in discussing anything, please reach out.
    Sign-up For Newsletter

    Archives

    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    December 2021
    October 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    June 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018

    Categories

    All
    Audience Engagement
    Building Trust
    Case Studies
    Change Agent
    Decision Maker
    DiSC
    Lead Generation
    Marketing And Sales
    Marketing Funnel
    Revenue Equation
    ROI
    Sales Alignment
    Sales Challenge
    Sales Compensation
    Sales Foundations
    Sales Funnel
    Sales Leadership
    Sales Management
    Sales Meeting
    Sales Performance
    Sales Pipeline Velocity
    Sales Success
    Sales Systems
    Sales Tasks
    Sales Team
    Sales Team Communication
    Sales Technology
    Sales Tech Tools
    Sales Tips
    Solution Selling
    Target Audience
    Thought Leader
    Value
    Virtual Sales Meeting
    Working Remotely

    RSS Feed

Improving Sales Performance
hello@improvingsalesperformance.com

© Improving Sales Performance. All Rights Reserved.


  • Home
  • Frameworks
  • Solutions
    • Consulting & Coaching
    • Workshops & Events
    • Peer Groups
  • Resources
    • Blog
    • Books and Newsletter
    • Worksheets, Webinars, Ebooks
  • About
    • Our Founder
    • Our Team
    • Testimonials
  • Contact