In my last blog post, I spoke about the importance of narrowcasting. Though I’ve talked about this topic many times in the past, it’s still something most people need to hear. Why?
When I speak around the country or when I first meet with clients, one of the questions I like to ask people is, “Who is your main audience?” Can you guess the most common answer to this question, the answer given by businesses and individuals who are struggling mightily with their marketing?
If you said, “the general public” you’re right.
There is NO GENERAL PUBLIC. People don’t see themselves as the general public. Instead, they see themselves as unique, with special wants and special needs. The more we can determine those special wants and needs, the more we can help that audience solve their problems and become a thought leader for them.
HOW TO DEFINE YOUR FOCUS: USE THE FRACTAL TREE
So how to you narrow your focus? How do you speak to a small, passionate audience? Let me give you an example from Andrew Davis, author of Brandscaping.
THE TRUNK: Let’s say you are in the travel industry. You might initially say you want to help everyone who travels. But if you stop and think about it, there are many, many different reasons people travel.
THE FIRST BRANCH: Now let’s narrow down the topic of travel. Does our audience want to travel for business or for leisure?
When someone is traveling for business, what are they concerned about? Are they concerned about having the best hotel with great views and being on the beach? Of course not. Instead, they are more concerned about convenience, cost and comfort.
But what about those traveling for leisure? Do they care about being close to the beach or the mountains, etc.? You bet they do. When traveling for leisure or pleasure, the customer wants to see, do, and experience different things than the customer traveling for business.
THE SECOND BRANCH: So let’s say we are going to focus on leisure travelers. What’s our next step?
Now, let’s get more narrow on the leisure travelers. Do all leisure travelers define “leisure” the same? Again, the answer is no. For some, the idea of a leisurely vacation might be zip lining through a jungle canopy, mountain biking in Utah or taking on whitewater rapids in West Virginia. For others, these types of activities are anything but relaxing. They define leisure as sitting on a tropical beach or lounging around at an all-inclusive resort.
THE THIRD BRANCH: If we decide to focus on relaxation leisure travel, we could go even a step further. We could focus on people who travel to relax who also like to vacation with their pets vs people without pets. See how narrow and focused we’ve gotten.
We are now concentrating on creating content for people who like to take leisurely, relaxing travel vacations with their pets. With this type of focus, we can now create very targeted and helpful content.
Some argue that this focus is too narrow. I disagree. One highly successful organization that focused on just this audience is Fido Friendly. They provide high quality content to pet lovers who want to travel with their pets. Because they provide content for such a focused audience, they have become a “go to” source and industry expert on this topic.
The result is a highly successful, profitable business.
KEY TAKEAWAY AND HOMEWORK
Don’t be afraid to be focused on a small audience. if your audience is passionate about their topic and finds it of value, you can position yourself as a trusted, reliable source of helpful, credible information while building a profitable following.
So ask yourself, do you have a narrow focus for your key audience? Are you helping the key audience that is responsible for the majority of your income? If not, you now know how to refocus your efforts.
