Marketing Copywriting: How Do You Clarify Your Target Market? Questions to help you define it

One of the most critical aspects of marketing is clarifying your target market. You cannot aim at a target without defining that target. If your market is confused, you will get mixed results. If it is too general, it will attract and not attract anyone. Make it a number one priority to create a crystal clear target market and orient all of your marketing writing around that. To help you clarify your market, here are some questions that might help you.

1) What problems do you solve? What problems are your prospects experiencing? What are they looking for a solution to? If your prospects were all in a room together, what would they be discussing?

2) Which segment of your target market do you most enjoy working with? What is it about them that is pleasant? Is it personality, success characteristics, or attitudes? When you think of your best clients, what comes to mind? If you could choose these customers and attract more like them, how would you describe them?

3) Which segment of your target market enjoys the least? What is it that worries you? Can you clearly identify the aspects that make working with them unpleasant? Do you have self-sabotaging attitudes, behaviors, or tendencies? Do you feel less successful when you work with them? Are they harder to close as customers? Do they tend to undervalue your services?

4) Focus on your absolute best, most successful and most memorable customers. What did they do that set them apart from all the other clients you’ve worked with? How did they approach the solution to their problem that uniquely brought them outstanding results? What can you identify about them that you could use in describing your target market?

5) If you were to update your target market, who would you attract the most and who would you eliminate as part of your market? What customer issues are taking up too much of your time without generating equivalent revenue?

6) What skills, training or education do you have that have prepared you to work with new segments of your market? Have you worked with new variations of problems and considered targeting that segment of the market? What has changed in your business that could change the dynamics of your market?

7) How have your feelings about your market changed? What have you tired of? What new potential excites you? What technological changes suggest new ideas? What have prospects been asking for? What services have been requested that you cannot or do not yet provide?

Do not work on marketing materials until you have zeroed in on a crystal clear target market. Use these questions to clarify and define who you work with on all of your marketing writing projects.