Everybody wants to advertise. Everybody wants to sell. The impulse to get your name out there and attract attention is not bad thing, but it can lead to blind-spots. If you find you're having trouble making your advertising campaign stick or you're not seeing the results you'd like, more often than not the problem is you're not selling to the right customer.

 

But, if you want to sell to the right customer, first you need to figure out who are the wrong ones are.

It's an easy trap to fall into. You might even be snared right now and not realize it. But, if last time you planed out a marketing push you identified your key target customers as something like "small businesses,” "hardware suppliers,” or "mobile users” I might have bad news for you. It's not that you're wrong, I have no doubt those groups may contain your target customers. In fact, those groups are so large that just statistically speaking there would have to be some overlap. But targeting your marketing like that is like trying to make a free throw by chucking the ball in the general direction of the court instead of the hoop itself.

If you truly want your marketing push to be effective, you have to figure out exactly who you're selling to, and that means excluding some possibilities. You need to know who isn't going to be interested in your product or service, figure out why that is, and then concentrate on who you can sell to. 

One reason people typically pick a vague or overly broad target market is that they're afraid to limit their possibilities. They'd like to sell to bigger clients, or reach into other markets, so they aim wide and hope to get lucky and find something that sticks. Well, sometimes people get lucky that way, but those happy few are the exception not the rule. Instead of constantly trying to go wide, you should concentrate on drilling down. Look at your current type of customer, look at the similarities, the needs they have, the pinch points they face, the things they care about.

Once you do that, you can focus on optimizing your service to that fulfilling those exact needs. Become a leader in your particular niche that is able to demonstrate concrete competitive advantages to THAT particular customer because you know them inside out. 

Become an expert in one area to build your stepping stone to the next. Once you've made your business the ideal choice for your (focused, clear, and ideal) market, you can start moving into other spheres. Find adjacent markets, other customers with similar needs and goals to your base and work to include them to. Slowly enlarge your circle starting with your base and draw those customers to you with proven advantages and market knowledge. 

You won't be selling to everybody, but that's okay. You'll be selling to the people who are actually buying.