If you want to be successful, it is far easier and simpler to find a specific type of audience, build your ‘ideal client’ image and then work your socks off in serving that client. Once you are dominating your niche of the market you can afford to spread out and broaden your focus, but till then, it is niche, niche, niche.
Brian (a freelance web developer) talks about his audience:
“I’m targeting serious entrepreneurs and small businesses that need an impressive and quality web presence that helps them achieve their online business goals. I want to target people who place a high value on quality and results.
However, I also know how hard it is for people to pay for quality web design, so I want to provide a low-cost way for people to get started and to teach them the same techniques I use to build websites for my clients.
I want to target web-savvy people with a basic understanding of how websites work. Age is no barrier to entrepreneurship, and thanks to the Internet I have a worldwide audience. However, I will be targeting an English-speaking audience because web design and getting clear requirements from the client is hard enough without getting tangled in language problems.”
In an effort to allow for different (and possibly overlapping) audiences, Brian is using his skills to provide website templates and web design tips on his website. These will in turn get his design skills more exposure so
they benefit him in several different ways.
You need to use your website goals to paint a detailed picture of your audience – web-savvy, English speaking and an understanding for web design. Unfortunately, we realize that Brian’s goals are detailed but not specific enough, and as a result he will have trouble competing in this already-tough niche.
So what does Brian do?
He rethinks his goals and his audience, and decides to narrow down his area of expertise to WordPress (a
popular blogging software) - http://wordpress.org/
That’s a smart move, because more and more people are moving towards WordPress and blogging, and as big companies start to embrace blogging as part of their marketing and branding strategy quality designers like
Brian will always be in demand.
Brian also decides to target local businesses first, so that he can build a local, community-based profile and use that as a launching pad for the future.
You don’t have to ‘go local’, but it’s a good idea to give more attention to your own community / pick a narrow niche to start in. Dominating them is easier, and it gives you the momentum to move up to bigger niches.
What Does Your Site Do?
• How does your website solve the core problem your target audience has?
• What information does it provide to its users?
• What are the steps you want your readers to take on each page, and how do they tie in with your primary
goal?
Keep reading ... our next post will be Setting Goals - Part III
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