The crux of developing a small business marketing strategy is defining your target market. It’s essential because, in the digital age, it’s neither practical nor possible to target everyone.

Yet many businesses miss this essential step. We often hear people say they want to target “anyone interested in my offer.” This is far too general.

They also tend to think they have no competition. Even with a unique, innovative offer, this is never entirely true.

With digital marketing, one of the keys is to discover the minimum viable audience. Instead of targeting “anyone interested,” you design your offer around a niche so it targets only people who are true enthusiasts, then build off that popularity.

One reason businesses fail to identify target markets is that it’s easy to discuss in the abstract but difficult to put into practice.

So let’s break this concept down into a few essential parts that will get you thinking more accurately about who you want to reach — and why they’ll be happy you reached them.

Be clear about who you’re for (and who you’re not for)

Carmine’s Italian Restaurant in New York is well known for enormous, family-size portions served with garlic bread that is anything but subtle.

If you’ve got a famished group that is more than happy to reek of garlic together the rest of the night, this restaurant is for you.

However, if you’re on your first dinner date with a blossoming new romantic interest, Carmine’s isn’t the best choice. Your evening may not end as planned if you’re both stuffed with lasagna and emitting potent garlic breath.

Carmine’s is clear about who their restaurant is for, and they’re also clear about who it’s not for. They’re not trying to please everyone or be the right choice for every occasion.

Compare this to a chain, like The Olive Garden. You won’t be overwhelmed by strong flavors from their dishes, but it’s likely that everybody will think the food is okay. They’re pleasing to a mass audience, but they don’t take the risk to create bold dish that aficionados would rave about.

A business startup that’s developing a new brand will find it all but impossible to try to be The Olive Garden. You don’t need everyone to like you. You need a smaller group of people to love you.

Can you be profitable?

So you need to have a niche offering that a targeted group of people will be passionate about. But there is a balancing act here.

We are talking about the smallest viable audience. By viable, we mean the audience is also large enough that you can ship enough product to turn a profit and make a living.

It’s not uncommon for entrepreneurs to come to us with unbridled enthusiasm for their business idea. However, driven by personal passion, they forget to analyze whether or not there’s a demographic that shares it or has the need their product solves.

There is an important point here. We’re not saying that you need to run focus groups and product tests to confirm that people will buy your offer — before you actually offer it.

That’s actually impossible. You can’t avoid a certain level of risk when you introduce a product to a new demographic. You’ll only know — for certain — what their response is when they act in the real world.

The only way to know for sure if people will buy your product is to put it out there and see if they buy it.

What you do need is empathy. Consider a potential audience, then put yourself in their shoes. Look at your offering with fresh eyes.

Is there a genuine appeal to your offer? Are you acting with enough integrity and generosity to make it worth people’s time to try you? Are you setting up your business so one of your main objectives is to earn people’s trust?

Entrepreneurs are, by their nature, dreamers, but successful ones are also pragmatists.

Look at the market space you’re entering. You should be confident there is a place for your product and that you’ll win enough customers to establish a viable business.

Do people need you, and do they know it?

So you take a good look at a potential target demographic and decide it’s viable. There are people who should be interested in your offer.

But there’s often another hurdle. You may identify a considerable demographic that would benefit from your offer. The problem is they don’t know they need you.

This is a challenge many businesses face. Their target demographic will love the offer, but the business has to educate them about how the product will improve their lives.

The process of informing and educating leads about how’ll they benefit from a product is a major component of online marketing.

Digital consumers are methodical. They have far more access to news, information and reviews than anyone in history.

Many marketing strategies will involve connecting with prospective customers as they research, then using that process to educate them about why your product is right for them.

Even when your targeting is right on, you’ll need to prepare to work through a longer buying cycle filled with content and planned touchpoints.

They may need you. But they won’t buy until they understand they need you and feel you’ll improve their lives.

Connect instead of change

Say you run an airline, but you don’t offer flights to Portland, Oregon.

There is no point in trying to persuade people who need a flight to Portland that you’re the airline for them.

It’s same thing with Carmine’s. There is no reason to try to convince people who don’t like garlic and rivers of marinara sauce that this is the restaurant for them.

Traditionally, marketing and advertising are considered persuasive disciplines. To an extent, this is still true. Your marketing is designed to affect the way people feel and think. As you educate them about the benefits you deliver, you entice them into action.

But when it comes to targeting a market, you want to connect with people who are like-minded and — at least hypothetically — have a need for your offer.

If you sell a meat snack product, don’t try to convince vegans to try it. If you don’t fly to Portland, don’t try to sell people traveling there.

Your target market isn’t “anybody” interested in your offer. It’s not anybody you might —conceivably — persuade to buy it.

It’s the people who really want it and will truly benefit from it. Connect with that market, and you can end up with a product that markets itself.

Originally published on 5/8/18