Let’s talk about one of the most important considerations for any marketing or business strategy. This is something that will really grease the wheels when it comes to making more money, creating compelling content and finding fulfillment in your business.

It’s a classic question: which comes first, the chicken or the egg? Sadly, most businesses choose wrong.

A Tale of Two Companies

Let’s take a peek into the boardroom of Acme, Inc. to see what I mean.

I have the best idea! I know exactly what our customers need. Listen to this. Instead of producing our widgets in just one color — blue — we’ll now offer a selection of 15 colors so it’ll appeal to more people. We’ll have an option for everyone!”

Quick! Let’s put together a nifty ad campaign to highlight the new marketing message. If we just let everyone know that we have the their favorite color, they’ll buy. It’s sure to skyrocket our sales.

Months later, after the ad budget has been blown, sales are still flat. Everyone’s back in the boardroom scratching their heads and feeling a little sheepish.

What would have been a more intelligent approach to this process? To find out, let’s join another the meeting already in progress over at WizBang Enterprises where the CEO is addressing the senior staff.

We started this company with the mission of bringing the best widgets to college kids. We want to give those students the widgets that they need to do well in school. We recently gathered info from Twitter and our community forums that show we need to re-think our assumptions.

Previously we thought our customers wanted a wider selection of colors to choose from. However, it seems the biggest problem is that they are having a hard time setting the widgets up which means they don’t get used. This is hurting word-of-mouth marketing and increasing the rate of product returns.

Starting immediately, we’re going to produce instructional videos to include with all of our widgets. In addition, we’ll publish them online as a podcast for potential customers to watch. By educating our market and solving their key problem, we project sales will again rise.

Give Them What They Want, Not What You Think They Need

Let’s compare and contrast these two scenarios.

Acme: Assumes what their customers need.
Wizbang: Reaches out to their market to find out what they want.

Acme: Tries to appeal to everyone.
Wizbang: Defines their market specifically and caters the offer directly to them.

Acme: Started with the message, then went in search of a market to deliver it to.
Wizbang: Started with the market, then found the right message for that market.

Are you a Wizbang or an Acme?

Most Companies Do It Backwards

Effective marketing is about matching the message to the right market — not the other way around.

Too many companies fall madly in love with their message/product/service before they ever consider the audience. It’s just like our English teachers taught. Define the audience before you write a single sentence of the essay.

Put into business terms: carefully choose a starving market, then give them exactly what they’re hungry for.

FIRST, choose the market THEN refine the message to match.

Think Narrower to Grow Bigger

When we first started Internet Business Mastery, we created content for anyone and everyone interested in online marketing — the Fortune 500 marketing exec, the small business marketer, the newbie internet entrepreneur…anyone. By trying to cater to everyone, we catered to no one.

Our audience growth hit a plateau. We had a hard time figuring out how to give our audience what they wanted.

Finally we made what seemed like a counter-intuitive move. In order to grow, we had to narrow our audience. We refined the definition of our target market to only include people stuck the 9-to-5 grind looking for a way out by starting a internet business.

Since then Internet Business Mastery has grown into a six-figure a year business. By refining our audience definition, we amplified our results. We helped more people. We made more money. We created better content.

Audience Amplifier

This is the start of a special series on how to be a Wizbang business and not an Acme. I’ve outlined a step-by-step process for defining your target market to amplify your results. This is a process is the first thing I go through with high-end clients that have paid thousands of dollars to consult with me.

At the end of the series I’ll also post a worksheet that you can use to regularly walk through the process. It’s a good idea to think , whether you’re just starting out or have been marketing and producing content for years

In the next installment we’ll talk about having a Red Velvet Rope Policy. Talk to you soon!