In my first post of this series: List Building – The Most Important Step, we spoke of goals and how important planning is to your list building efforts. In this post, we will discuss performing Target Market Analysis and the role it plays in growing your opt-in list. Let’s get started.
Now that you have clearly defined goals and objectives for your list, it is time to “whittle down” who your target market is. Some things you want to know about your market include:
- What problems are they facing?
- Where do they go or congregate, online?
- What are they afraid of? (VERY powerful!)
- What type of free offer are they most likely to respond to?
“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.” – Sun Tzu, The Art of War – 476 BC
Knowing your target market intimately; understanding what it is that motivates them, their fears, their hopes and their dreams, is critical to winning the war to grow your opt-in list. And if you don’t yet realize that list building is an all out war for subscribers, then let me be the first to tell you… it is a war!
You must know your target market as well as you know yourself, period. One method for knowing your niche is using Yahoo Answers.
Simply type in a question related to your niche market and see what else people are asking about the same. You can also browse the categories section and see what types of questions people are asking, as well as answers given to these questions. The information found here will go a long way towards giving you what you need to target your market effectively.
So, why exactly is it so important to research your target market?
Well for starters, it will help you create an opt-in product that will most likely appeal to your niche.
Great research will also help you to create potent follow-up emails that increase your chances of achieving your goals.
Lastly, thoroughly understanding your niche will help you to focus your list marketing efforts.
- Create compelling emails to motivate subscriptions
- Market your opt-in list accordingly, and
- Create a great product to entice subscriptions!
The next important factor to creating your opt-in list strategy concerns problem solving and promotion. Which we will cover in the next, and last, post in this series: List Building – Problem Solving and Promotion
- James
