When consulting for new businesses and solopreneurs, one of the first questions I will ask when we get to marketing matters is “Who is your market?” A great a deal of the time, I get the answer “Everybody!”. Even with a little pushing for a better definition most clients will still insist their market is a large generalized group with only one or two characteristics to define them such as “Anyone that needs a website” or “Any woman who like jewelry” or “Anyone who likes a good book” But such statements are:

1. Never true.
2. Representative of a marketing plan that is doomed to fail

Your market is always a very specific set of people. Take the website designer who says his market is anyone who wants a website. As one guy, is a big corporation who wants a 1000 page catalog site done in 2 months even possible for him to take on? Or is the hobbyist who will only spend $100 on a 5 page site, really the kind of client he wants to work with all the time? Is he going to be able to do a site for a hard-core gangsta rapper and still get the contract for that conservative local church?

The point is, you don’t market to a wide variety, or the fringe and oddball possibilities. You market to your specific core of people which may incidentally get you buyers or clients in other market segments but you don’t waste time chasing that. If you aim for too broad a market, you spread your efforts too thin to be effective with any one section of your market.

But who is your market? You probably already know, you’ve just never defined them. Take some time to do so now. Sit down and write out what your ideal, mostly likely to return for more, individual or company client or buyer is like. Characteristics should include:

1. Economic level (income for individuals, profit range for business)
2. Size of family or business (single, married, young family, empty nest; solopreneurs, small business, mid-size, large corporation)
3. Age (age range for individuals; start-up, established, or generational for business)
4. Ethnicity/Culture
5. Social &/or political leanings (conservative/liberal, primary social activity type, amount of social interaction, subcultures)
6. Interests and/or hobbies
7. The individual’s or company’s goals/concerns
8. Geographic location (local, state, national, international)
9. Type of location (urban, suburban, metropolitan, etc.)
10. Where they get general information (newspapers, TV, internet, networking, gossip, etc.)
11. Where they shop or go to find services
12. And whatever else you can think of …

Answering these questions will draw for you a picture of your typical buyer/client that you should keep in mind when making every marketing decision. If you have the talent, drawing an actual picture of your ideal person or business can help tremendously. I had a client who printed pictures off the internet and cut out photos from magazines of the particular type of people he was marketing to. It’s kind of like when you go to buy a birthday gift, you keep the person you are buying for in mind, usually visually. Do the same when planning your marketing (also when developing your product).

When planning your marketing, act like you’re shopping for a gift, and ask yourself what kind of gift they would like most (what products to focus on), what they need right now (how your product can solve their problems or fulfill a desire), how they will respond to different types of gifts (marketing materials), and how to wrap it (method of delivery).

Or you can just do something general like so many businesses do—kind of like spending you Christmas gift budget on sending everyone you have ever known a generic Christmas card. Many may read it but then it gets tossed and forgotten. Wouldn’t it have been better to spend your money on a few stunning gifts for the key people you want to impress so they’ll go around and talk about what you gave them?

Aim for impressing your key market. If your product is that good, they will tell others and expand your market for you.

First of all, I apologize if the title of this blog gets that Bonnie Raitt song stuck in your head. If it makes you feel any better, it’s torturing me non-stop as I write this. But I figure it could be worse so, onto my thoughts sans the theme music.

I spend a fair amount of time emphasizing word of mouth as a primary goal when consulting with clients on marketing their services & goods. I often refer to it as encouraging the messenger (see ‘It’s the Messenger not the Message’  http://asageinreallife.com/?p=31) because as one person (or even as a small team) you can only reach a relatively small number of people in a real, connected manner so you need your contacts and network to connect with their people and pass on your message. But the question is, what will motivate them to recommend you?

Seth Godin got me thinking about this after I read his blog about what he calls ‘the first circle. Basically he’s just bringing into focus how important your connection is to your immediate contacts versus worrying about the number of contacts you have. (http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/09/the-big-drop-off.html) That’s because you aren’t really marketing to your first circle as much as trying to market through them.

Your first circle–or first messengers or direct connects, whatever you want to call them–are the people you want to spend your resources on. If you skimp and do nothing but Twitter about what you have for sale, you aren’t going to have much effect. You need to give them a reason to pass the word along, a reason to talk about you.

You can do this a number of ways. Making humorous comments, videos, and pictures are great as are items that are visually or situationally amazing –just think of what makes the biggest hits on YouTube and what most of your forwarded emails are about.  Sending out messages with items of high value to your market such as novel advice or links to great resources will make people remember you. My favorite method of connecting and getting my messengers to pass the word along, though, is to help them out first. Appreciation is an intense motivator.

Instead of wasting time (and money) sending out announcements and sales pitches, try investing your time and effort in personally chatting with your contacts–especially to encourage or compliment. Buy a product or employ their services if they have something to sell. Or help them in their endeavors by spreading the word, offering your professional advice for free, or connecting them with others who can help them out further.

If you do things like this, your first circle is going to talk about you. Not only that, but you will also get that very necessary personal interaction that will translate into more enthusiasm for your own work and industry, not to mention the seredipitous encounters that result in great friendships and even business ventures along with more sales and exposure.

So go ahead … give them something to talk about. Then go throw on a CD of Patsy Cline or Queen or whatever floats your boat to get that song out of your head. Sorry about that …

When trying to get work or sales, go big. Don’t be tentative or start small. It’s like playing the stock market. If you only put in a few bucks on a questionable stock, you won’t get much back if anything. There’s just no point in doing that. However, if you put a good chunk of money on a few proven stocks, chances are you will get a very decent return. What you put out in both time and money to build your business needs to be similarly worthwhile.

For instance, if you are going to advertise, don’t keep putting up .20 cents a day banners on small sites with low traffic. Instead, spend $200 on a small color ad in a moderately well circulated magazine that people re-read such as technique and visual magazines. People will be seeing that ad for months if not years.

If you peruse the on-line lists and services for clients and projects, don’t bid on just one at a time and then hope it comes in. Write up a few template proposals with fill-in the blank sections to customize the bid with your relevant experience and how you can help them (it’s always ‘how you can help’ not ‘this is why you should pick me’) as well as the bid details, and send out several a day. You might get multiple acceptances at the same time but then you get to pick and choose.

Same thing goes with all your networking. If you have accounts on Twitter, Facebook, and/or MySpace get on there every day and interact with people. That stuff only works if you use it often enough so people know who you are and remember you when they need help with their website or need a cool handmade present for a picky relative. Same goes for blogs—if you have one, contribute several times a week which gives you more for the search engines to find and gives readers a reason to follow you. It’s all top of the mind marketing and promotes word of mouth.

If you have to budget your time and funds (and we all should to some degree), then go as big as you can with what you have. Don’t blog and keep up four or five social networking accounts if you can’t put aside the 2-3 hours every day to attend to them. Pick just a couple online services and work on them well and often. If you can’t put out a few hundred for an ad each quarter, don’t spend money on advertising. Spend what you can on improving your website and SEO or to get a customized Twitter background or new business cards.

It just comes down to, don’t do it unless you can do it well. Otherwise it’s just wasted time and effort.

Have you ever gone to see a live band you knew nothing about because of some flyer that said ” Best music you will ever hear!” or some such claim? How about when a friend tells you the exact same thing about the same band? Will you consider checking them out now? Quite likely (depending on the friend’s taste in such things, of course!). Why?

You already know the answer. Its because you trust the source is passing on information they think will benefit you, not just because they want to sell you something.  That’s why word of mouth is so valuable. And why networking can be such a goldmine. ‘Can be” being the key phrase.

Networking gives you an amazing reach, helping you get in contact with large portions of your market that would be difficult to contact otherwise. But unless people recommend you or you are seen as a like-able and trusted source, all your networking efforts are not going to get you anywhere.

For example, no one likes spammers. But they infiltrate every networking site on the web. However, it literally takes millions of messages for them to hit upon one newbie that isn’t going to think they are a scam AND wants what they’re selling. But for a business that wants to build a reputation and a loyal market, that is not going to work.

So the first rule of cultivating yourself as a trusted source (and getting those who trust you to spread the word) is “Don’t overwhelm and annoy your market”. No 20 tweets an hour or emails every day. You will get ignored with this approach. Your complete disregard for people’s time will only result in people dropping off your email  and twitter followers lists. It’s a waste of time.

The second rule is simply “Build trust by being real.” so you can be considered a reliable messenger and others will become messengers for you. Building trust takes work but it’s not hard work.

• Reach out personally to people. Personal contact is so rare that most people will decided to check your business out just because of that, regardless of your message or product.
• Be helpful. There is not better way to build trust or gain fans than to offer truly useful assistance.
• Be comical and lighthearted. It doesn’t matter how serious your business is, life is funny and people like to laugh. Laugh at yourself, make quips about your product, and laugh at other people’s funnies. If you can laugh, especially at yourself, people will trust you.
• Interact with people. Pass on recommendations from people in your network and when posting information, make it useful so people want to come to you for information. Answer every message and email  you get. If you just can’t do it personally, pay someone to do it for you–it is that important. Ignoring people is the best way to turn off a potential customer or client and start bad word of mouth.

Yes, all this can be very time consuming, at least initially. I used to spend half or more of my time just chasing work but now, I rarely have to, with work coming to me through repeat business from loyal clients and great word of mouth. I spent a lot of time initially building trust and rapport through my networks and existing clients and now, it’s more just maintenance.

So go ahead, just be real. Be human. Be the kind of person you’d trust to steer you to businesses you want to deal with.

It’s not about you, your company, your product or service, or your reputation. At least not initially. When a potential customer/client first encounters you, it’s never “I wonder what great things this person/company offers?”, it’s “Is there anything here for me?”

When aiming to gain new sources of income from your market, one of the first things you will need to do is put your ego in a tightly sealed container and put it far out of reach. I think this is particularly hard for creatives to do this because what we’re selling is ourselves, our vision, our talent, and sometimes even our personalities. But you won’t reach many people by simply saying, “Hey I’m great and I have great stuff to offer you—come see!”

Draw new clients and customers in by appealing directly to their egos. Make it all about them getting the attention and giving the opportunity to feed their egos. Here are some basic ideas to get you thinking about your customers focused campaign:

Give ‘em something to talk about: People love to laugh, be surprised, and be shocked and they love to share sources of such entertainment. Remember the big, hairy biker dude who modeled the wedding dress on Ebay? That dress sold for 30x what he hoped to get plus all the attention (he got radio and TV time!) and marriage proposals. Why? Because the picture of him in that dress was both hilarious and a little shocking. Stuff like that is the online version of gossip and people like to talk about what they’ve found. So give them something to talk about and whole sections of the market you weren’t directly tied into will come to you.

Get an opinion: You know what they say about opinions and it’s true. Everyone has one and most people love the opportunity to share it. Perhaps you can ASK your Tweeple to tell you what they think about your latest website templates instead of just announcing you posted them in your store. This gets people going to your site as well as giving you valuable input for future work. Or post a blog about an issue that the industry you write for would get fired up about, asking for feedback so you can start a conversation with new people. Having a conversation means you are building a relationship that you can use to directly and personally access your potential new clients.

Get their story: Yep, people do like to talk about themselves, so go ahead and ask them to do so on your site or blog or even your Twitter page as a start. If you’re writing a book about fly fishing, ask for comical fly fishing stories to draw them to the site where you sell your book. Or better yet, ask before you even write it to gain more fodder for the book and an instant street team when the book comes out as people will tell their friends and networks about the book their story is in.

How you will appeal to potential clients/customers will differ greatly depending on your market. Just consider what gets the riled up, how they like to be entertained, what they talk about most, and where they congregate both on and off line. And then get creative. It’s what you do best. And just keep chanting the mantra “It’s all about them.”

Client’s love to have things bolded … in advertisements, in their books, in brochures, their logos, in blog posts … it doesn’t matter what, they just want their words to have force. They can never trust that the words will do it on their own. THEY HAVE TO MAKE THEM SHOUT. See how annoying that is?

Even at art fairs and conventions, people love hanging those big vinyl banners out. Or they have somebody loudly coercing people to come into their booth. It’s obnoxious and does not make people want to buy, much less listen. What gets a person to come to you, to listen to your client’s message, or buy your artwork is just showing them the solution to their problem is with in reach or that you have an object they desire (even if they didn’t know it).

My favorite example of this kind of thing is the Google home page. Google is about searching for something. Their page is about searching for something. Their page is mostly white space. It does not presume to tell you what you want to know. It leads you directly to its primary product and the thing that you desire to find most on this page, the search box. They don’t shout about all the things the service can find for you or make it so pretty and slick you forgot why you came. The page says, here, search and below the box, a few links, humbly offered like little gifts to help you search further. And as we all know, Google is the most widely used search engine in the world. That page is a huge part of their success.

So, no shouting. Show your customers (or your client’s) what they want to see, not what you (or your client) wants them to see and they will stick around long enough to hear what you have to say next.