So what does this mean exactly? So your target market or your niche is basically a group of people that you consider to be your ideal team members and/or customers.
The first thing to consider is what age group and I would suggest a 10 year gap. For instance 35 – 45 year olds or 50 – 60 year olds. You get the idea. Next is their location – where would you like to build your business. But get specific! Don’t just say “I want to build business in Scandinavia”. Where abouts in Scandinavia? Stockholm? Oslo? Copenhagen? Aarhus? Malmo? Tromso? Drill down. What is the demographic of these people – do they have kids? Are they DINKs? What about their hobbies? With hobbies I like to suggest something in common with you so you have a bridge of rapport to engage in conversation with them. No point in target horse people if you have never ridden a horse in your life – you won’t be able to speak the same language as them. Occupation is another one. I like to target people in the corporate industry that I used to work in because once again, I can speak the same language. Motivators are another thing to consider when developing your target audience.
Next thing to consider is what short term problems does your target audience have. So right now given this pandemic it might be job security. Is it a big problem that they want solved fast and something your opportunity could solve. Do they have long-term fears? Remember, if nothing changes, nothing changes, right?
Your next job is to find out where these people hang out on Facebook, Instagram and Linked In. So firstly, use the search tool. If you are using Campaign Manager for paid ad campaigns, this is super simple. Find out what groups these people are in, what Pages they like and join/like and start loving posts, commenting and talking to people. Start building up that profile so that people will start to know, like and trust you. Then of course they are much more likely to do business with you.
The other thing you can do within Facebook is use the Audience Insights tool on your Business Page. This will help you find the groups and Pages your niche are members of. It will recommend for you Pages to follow where your potential business partners and customers could already be. Audience Insights within Facebook Campaign/Business Manager is another way to find the groups/Pages of your target market. And here’s a brilliant article that explains it way better than I could: https://adespresso.com/blog/facebook-audience-insights/ It’s a bit of work, but so worth it in really managing your time effectively on where you are spending your time on Facebook.
You could also target your audience on Linked In and Instagram utilizing paid ads as well as job posts and hashtags on your Instagram posts. If you are using the #workfromhome – you may find a lot of people are looking at that right now. Do some hashtag research and find out what the most trending hashtags are on Instagram and start using them!
Lastly, post regularly on your personal profile. Facebook really loves this. Especially going Live once a week. This will quite literally shift the algorithm in your favour and Facebook will start making your videos visible to many more on your friends list. Regularly add more people as friends – I aim for about 5 a day and I’m up to just over 2,000 now. Make sure you comment on other’s posts both in your feed, on relevant Pages and in Groups. Particularly other people’s Lives. And ensure you use the love or wow reaction – not just like. Facebook isn’t a big fan of people scrolling through their feed and clicking like on everything.
This is by no means a laundry list of all and sundry of what you can be doing, but it’s a great start. Once you are clear on precisely who you want to be working with, you’ll be amazed at who shows up! I am constantly astounded at the prospects I speak to daily and how much we have in common. It makes for a much more pleasant conversation and keeps the whole process fun! Which is what it’s meant to be. And now more than ever before in Facebook’s history, more people are on it so start doing your research and start uncovering your ideal clients.