5 minute read. 

When creating a business, one would assume that you may have a target audience in mind. In many cases, however, business owners and entrepreneurs start with a product or service then search for the market where it would be most useful. This week on the Knowledge Broker Podcast we discuss how to find, define and market your target audience. 
 
As always, you can listen here or read on to see some of the highlights from our discussion. 
 
 
Where to Start 
 
We finished last week’s episode by affirming that it does not cost a lot of money to market to one person. If you have recently opened a business, you may be under the impression you need to market to as many people as possible. This is tragically untrue. By marketing to the mass majority, your product will get lost in the wave of everyone’s daily scroll. We highly suggest that when you start marketing, you only market to one person. Follow these steps to help you categorize your perfect client. 
 
Finding Your Target Audience 
 
Your first step to identifying your target audience is to ask yourself the following questions:
 
What is the age of my audience?
Where is my audience located? 
What is the gender of my audience? 
What is the financial position of my audience? 
What is my product or service?  
Who is my competition and how do they operate their business? 
What do my clients gain from following me? 
 
These questions are designed to help you categorize your audience. The more specific you can be the better, as this will help you market to a targeted few. Depending on your product or service, some of these questions might not fit. For example, in our business, age does not matter. We find similarities with our clients who are in their 30’s up to their 80’s.   
 
Defining Your Target Audience 
 
Next, define your audience using this simple sentence. Fill in the brackets with your answers from above. [Business Name] helps [gender] [ages] located in [location] [my business service or product] by providing them [what do our clients gain]. When I filled out an example for Knowledge Broker it read like this “Knowledge Broker helps men and woman of all ages located in York Region enjoy the experience of buying or selling their property by providing them with the knowledge and expertise they require during the transition of moving.” 
 
By having this simple sentence remain in the back of your mind, it will be much easier to market to a select clientele. 
 
Marketing to Your Target Audience 
 
Finally, how to market to your target audience. Before you begin, you need to categorize your audience’s motivations, needs, and wants.  
 
Motivations 
 
At Knowledge Broker, in order to identify our audience’s motivations, we started by creating avatars. These avatars were based on past client experiences from our different age brackets. They ranged from people in their 30's to 80’s. From there, we specified them even further looking into subcategories such as first-time homebuyers, buying an investment property or downsizing. By doing this, we are now able to visualize our client’s motivations. They might be advancements, change in locations, personal achievements and of course their fears. 
 
Needs 
 
Once the avatars are created, we create packages that appeal to them. Most importantly, we market to the things they care about. A good rule of thumb is to market your product and services only 1/3 of the time. The remainder should be valuable information to your audience. While your product or service is important, it is the other elements you deliver that will separate you from your competition. A perfect example of this is our Knowledge Broker Podcast. Each week we break down elements of our company by using real estate as an example without it being our central focus. We are providing our audience with more than just stats, neighbourhood values and other typical real estate information.
 
Wants 
 
When you begin marketing to your audience, you will notice people reacting to your product or service at perhaps 50% or less. They may not be your ideal client now but could be in the future. These are your daydreamers who look at all the valuable content you create and want it. A key discussion we had regarding this idea is not to push them towards your product or service but to pull them in. Entice and attract them to create a natural and genuine business relationship. 
 
Closing Thoughts 
 
When you create your avatars and begin marketing towards them, you may notice you are not connecting with your audience 100% of the time. Just remember, it is almost impossible to do so. Aim for 70% or 80% as your audience will still be able to resonate with you and your message. 
 
Lastly, when you market more precisely, your audience will feel more of an emotional connection allowing you to speak to them directly. We guarantee that you will be able to find your loyal client base by constantly producing valuable content and always putting the client experience first.
 
That was it for this week’s podcast. Just as a reminder, our weekly podcast comes out every Tuesday on  Podbean, Youtube, Spotify, Google Podcast and Apple Podcast. As always you can email me at trish@knowledgebroker.ca with your comments and ideas. 
 
Our job at Knowledge Broker is to cultivate an open source of information. Knowledge is power and creates experts and understanding. Do you want the power? Connect with us here on our website or social media at “@knowledgebrkr”.
 

“My knowledge becomes your asset and my hard work is your vehicle to success.”
 
JOSHUA CAMPBELL (@knowledgebrkr)
Real Estate Broker
Coldwell Banker The Real Estate Centre, Brokerage
www.KnowledgeBroker.ca
249 Avenue Road • Newmarket, ON L3Y 1N8
Phone 289.231.0001