Target
Marketing Secrets To Maximize Your Time And
Income
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Target marketing is one of the keys to a
successful sales marketing program and an important part of
your sales training. Starting your marketing efforts without
first identifying your target market is like trying to hit a
target with a bow and arrow blindfolded. A very small
percentage of the arrows will hit the target.
Every product or service is desirable to a
definable group of people. To have greater success in less time
with your marketing strategies, spend time identifying your
target market.
The Three Best
Ways to Target Market
The first area to consider when target
marketing is geographic, people or businesses in a certain
area. Get to know the geographic area you are considering by
driving or walking through it. You can tell a lot by the things
you see if you pay attention. Make sure the area works for your
particular product or service.
The second area is demographic. Demographics
are the basic qualities and characteristics of your target
market. They include age, gender, culture, employment,
industry, income level, marital status, etc. Collecting
information about your current or past clients may help show
things they have in common which will help in future marketing
strategies.

The third is psychographics. These are made
up of the emotional and behavioral qualities of your target
market. They include the emotion, reasoning, psychology, logic
and thought processes behind your target markets decision to
purchase your product. It's really important to understand what
motivates them to purchase.
Gather
Information on Your Target Market
Take time to do the research to find your
target market. Go through the list of your past clients. List
the characteristics of the clients who've purchased from you.
What do they have in common? Take a survey of your past and
current clients. Ask them questions like:
* Why did you purchase my product or
service?
* Why did you purchase at that specific time?
* Why did you purchase right away or take your time?
* What do you like best about my product or service?
* What do you like least?
* Would you refer others to me? If not, why not?
* What specific benefits do you see in my product or
service?
I think you get the idea. Take your time.
Get as much information as you can to develop a profile of your
target market. You want to know not only who buys from you
(demographic) but, more important, why (psychographics).
Take Over the
Market
Now that you've found your target market,
dominate it. When I sold real estate we called this "farming".
I visited my target market frequently knocking on doors to
introduce myself as the expert in the area. I would send out a
monthly newsletter, deliver suckers, refrigerator magnets,
pens, anything with my name on it. Some people handed out
pumpkins at Halloween. There are many creative things you can
do. Is it a lot of work? Of course, however it pays back huge
dividends.
By using target marketing you concentrate
your marketing efforts on prospects that will most likely do
business with you. You'll also increase your closing ratio,
income and stop wasting time on low profitability
prospects.
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About
The Author
Jim
Klein provides salespeople with effective
strategies to increase their business
while working less, guaranteed. Get free sales training
by subscribing to our free newsletter "The
Sales Advisor".
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