But if you can’t answer these questions – if you’re just ‘winging it’ – then you’re going to struggle and likely fail at online marketing. Certainly, you will never be as successful as you could be if you did answer these questions.
(If I don’t have your interest now, you’re not paying attention…)
Here are the questions you must answer when going into ANY new market:
1: Where is your target customer right now in their life?
For example, what pain are they feeling or what problem do they need solving?
Let’s say your market is weight loss. Your target customer might be Rachael, a 35 year old married woman with two children and a career who has tried everything to lose those extra 25 pounds she gained since she got married and had kids.
2: Where do they want to be?
For example, what goal do they have, or what outcome are they looking for?
Rachael wants to look like she did when she first met her husband –
She wants to look amazing in her business attire, when she’s out with her husband or just running errands. And with her non-stop schedule, she wouldn’t mind having more energy, too.
3: Why do they want to be there?
For example, what are the underlying issues they’re really trying to solve?
For Rachael, she’s worried her husband is losing interest in her. She wants him to be attracted to her, and she wants to feel sexy and wanted.
Plus, she wouldn’t mind being the most gorgeous woman in her circle of friends, looking amazing in her clothes and feeling younger, too.
And then there’s Rachael’s mom, who is obese. Rachael is secretly terrified she’s going to continue to pack on the pounds just like her mom did, and pretty soon she’ll be tipping the scales at 200+ pounds, too, with all the health problems her mom has.
4: What can you sell them to get them from #1 to #2 as quickly as possible?
This is your product. In this case, you want something that will enable Rachael – a busy mom, career woman and wife – to lose weight.
It shouldn’t take a lot of time or be super complicated – Rachael doesn’t have the free time for 2 hour a day exercise regimens or spending 3 hours in the kitchen preparing special meals.
Once you can answer these four questions, you know exactly who you’re targeting and HOW to target them. Plus, you know how to customer tailor your product exactly for them.
One last thing – some folks will wonder if we’ve narrowed our market down too much. “Shouldn’t we target ALL people who want to lose weight, or at least all women, or…”
No.
Consider this scenario: You’re having a conversation, trying to convince someone to do something. Except that it isn’t one person, it’s a thousand different people, each with a different life, different needs, different problems and different desires.
How can you begin to address the issues of 1,000 different people all at the same time?
You can’t. But you can talk to just one.
And as you carry on this conversation with this one person – in this case, Rachael – the other 999 can listen in.
No doubt they will relate to many of the issues that are raised and the points that you make. They might not be like Rachael, but they can relate to her and her problem because it’s not that different from their own problem.
And many of them will buy your product, too.
But if you had tried to address all of them at the same time? It would have been too confusing, too bland and too generic to appeal to anyone.
And now that you’ve answered your 4 questions, you can create a mission statement that works, that addresses your exact audience and tells them exactly why they can and should do business with you.
In addition, by answering these four questions you’ve just created a basic product outline – and outline you can use time and time again to make new products.
You’re able to write your sales copy, because you now know the pain points and your selling points.
And you can target your ads and your traffic to the right people with the right pain. Your ads, products, and sales copy are all congruent now. It all targets the right person and it all makes sense.
These 4 questions might very well be all that stands between you and a super successful product launch, not to mention potentially dominating your niche.
