Bright Ideas # 67 - An Easy Way to Find Your Target Market

Recently, one of my subscribers, Marie (a newly-minted, professional copywriter), wrote to me with an interesting question…

“How do you come up with a target market for a business that literally sells to just about everyone?”

You see, she’s just landed the opportunity to work with a local utility company in her area. But in that part of the country, competition among utility companies is fierce.

Here’s what Marie said…

“There's big competition in Delaware for utility contracts, because they're building on every tiny inch of remaining property (sad). I asked who they were trying to reach. Who's the target audience? They answered -- EVERYONE. I said that doesn't work. The difficulty with choosing a target market is that they are a water/waste management company, so every new housing development and often the developer can choose the utility company they want. And now some towns are choosing privatization and they, too, have a choice. So that's why they say their market is EVERYONE.”

If you’ve been getting Bright Ideas for awhile, you’ve read plenty about the importance of choosing a target market.

Thankfully, most products lend themselves to being targeted quite easily. Because it is usually pretty obvious who will benefit most from what you are selling—or at least be most likely to buy.

But what about utilities?

Everybody needs them—right? And this company, like so many others, is afraid that if they target one particular group they are going to miss out on tons of sales.

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How do you pick a target market when everyone truly needs what you sell?
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Instead of trying to choose a particular target market, they could come up with a differentiating factor (that ever-important Unique Selling Proposition, or USP, you’ve read me harping about before) to make them stand out from the crowd first. Then let this lead them to their target market.

Because if the company has something unique to offer, they will automatically attract a certain type of customer.

In the case of the utility company, my first thought would be to go with convenience…Say, online or credit card bill pay.

Or, perhaps they could be the “green” company—either by doing business in a more environmentally sensitive way (driving hybrid vehicles, printing on recycled paper, using new technology, etc.), or by donating a percentage of profits to an environmental cause.

Another option would be to create a fun mascot and use it in all their marketing.

I recently saw a terrific example of this from a company up in Montana that makes all natural skin care products...All their marketing is “written by” J. Moose and signed with a moose hoof print. Most of it is also pretty darn funny.

Then, there is always the option of offering some kind of incentive for doing business with them. Interestingly, this incentive does not even have to be related to their core business. It just has to be something their potential customers would want.

For example, every year Les Schwab Tires has a big sale where they offer customers free beef with their purchase. When I first heard about this I thought it sounded bazaar and random.

So one day, when I was in Les Schwab, I asked about it. Apparently it works like gangbusters.

Customers even start asking when the free meat sale is going to happen months in advance so they can plan their tire purchases accordingly.

Whodda thunk it?!

Of course, before Marie’s client can choose a USP they are going to have to study their competition Because the key to the USP lies in the word unique.

It’s not nearly as powerful to be one of two “green” companies. They need to find an angle all their own.

So, their first step would be to research the competition and find out what other utilities are already doing, offering and promoting.

Then, they need to look at their own business practices and see if they are already doing something interesting they aren’t talking about. If not, it’s time to brainstorm a list of possibilities.

Finally, once they have a short list of options, they have to pick the one their customers are most likely to be interested in.

For example, Les Schwab’s meat promotion wouldn’t be such a good choice if their target market was environmentalists, since they are more likely to be vegetarians.

In terms of the utility, I think it is pretty safe to say that these days plenty of folks would want to “go green”. And convenience is always a good bet too—as long as no one else has already staked out that territory.

Whatever they choose, they need to make sure they talk about it in every bit of marketing and advertising they do. Once they become know as the “________” company, a certain group of consumers will be dying to do business with nobody but them.

That will become their target market. And chances are those folks will be extremely loyal and recommend them to other, like-minded buyers.

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Having trouble finding your target market?
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You can use this exact same “reverse engineering” method.

1) Ask yourself “What do I do that is different?”, or “What can I do that is different?”

2) Decide who is most likely to be interested in, want, or respond to that feature or benefit.

Those people are now your target market. So you can tailor all of your branding and messaging to reach them specifically, and not worry about the rest.

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Do you have a marketing, advertising or writing question you’d like to have answered? Email me and you might see the answer in a future edition of Bright Ideas.

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