Find Your Perfect Target Market on LinkedIn in 3 Quick Steps

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Let’s dive in….

How are you going to grow your business through LinkedIn if you’re building a community of “misfits”?

If you’re a banana grower, you probably don’t want to waste your time talking to many of these…

(Photo by Jeff Lemond on Unsplash)

But you’ll definitely want plenty of these in your community…

(Photo by alex person on Unsplash)

Before you start marketing on LinkedIn, make sure you’ve got the right audience in front of you.

The need to define your target audience is, in fact, one of marketing’s most basic principles. It’s the starting point from which all positioning and messaging should flow.

So how should you go about it?

There are three basic steps to take…

1. Go deep before you go wide

Don’t fall into the old trap like some business owners on LinkedIn.

They have a new tool at their fingertips and want to make money. So they jump in to sales mode, assuming they already know who wants what they’ve got.

They ‘go wide’ by trying to sell to practically everyone they imagine who wants their product or service.

Consequently, they get their positioning all wrong. This can be a costly mistake – both in terms of wasted marketing dollars and lost opportunities.

If you “go wide” before you “go deep”, you’ll end up paying extra to cover that huge service area -  and the poor quality of your leads will reflect the poor quality of your targeting.

(Photo by Almos Bechtold on Unsplash)

Don’t be ‘generalist’.

Going deep helps you to position yourself as a specialist. You will spend less money to get your leads: the message you put together will be congruent with the service you’re offering; and it will better resonate with the people you’re talking to.

If you’ve got a limited marketing budget, like most small business owners, it simply makes more sense to go deep before you go wide when considering your target audience.

It will help you get clear on who you’re marketing to and the conversations you need to be having with these people.

2. Get clear on who needs what you’ve got

(Photo by Audron? Locaityt? on Unsplash)

People are essentially motivated by three core factors (other than bananas):

• Time
• Money
• Lifestyle (freedom)

But these are general terms. They mean different things to different people. A business owner defines each of them differently to an employee, an accountant, a personal trainer, and so on.

You can clearly define who you need to be talking to by asking these three questions:

• What are their PROBLEMS and challenges?

Understand these so that you can use the images and language that will motivate and attract your target market. This helps them relate to what you’re saying.

• What are your PROMISES? What is their PARADISE?

If your target market is real estate agents who are finding it hard to find clients to sign contracts, what’s their perfect outcome?

Ask yourself:

“If I had a magic wand, how could I help them get quicker sales, more opportunities to represent more premium houses in premium suburbs…?”

If you know their ‘paradise’, you can start speaking a language that motivates them.

• What drives these people? What’s their PASSION?

Define what gets these people out of bed in the morning – this will then help you speak in the emotional language that talks to their wants, desires, and needs.

When you’re passionate about what you do and you’re able to tap into the passions of your target market, you can create something that is truly of service.

You collaboratively create a solution that provides either time, money, or a better lifestyle –adding tangible value to lives.

3. Then start bridging the gap

Only once you understand the problem and how it fits together with your promise can you come up with a solution: that’s when your product or service comes into play – not before.

If you’re not clear on the nature of the gap between where they are now and where they want to be, you’ll never be able to bridge it and enable them to get there.

Define and survey your target market. Then tailor your offering to it.

These three simple steps, help you satisfy potential clients in the three key areas that are most important to them: money, time, and freedom.

Think of what you offer as the conduit to get your target clients from where they are now to their “paradise”. That’s when you’ll start getting more out of LinkedIn.

P.s. Whenever you’re ready… here are 3 ways I can help you grow your business with LinkedIn

1. Join the Influencer Boardroom and connect with other advisors and consultants who are scaling too: It’s our new Facebook community where smart advisors and consultants learn to generate more purpose, profit and power. - Click Here

2. Join Our Implementation Program and be a Case Study: I’m putting together a new consulting case study group inside The Influencer Project this month… stay tuned for details. If you’d like to work with me on your client-getting and business growth plans using LinkedIn… just send me a message and put “Case Study” in it and I’ll get you more info.

3. Work with me and my team privately: If you’d like to work directly with me and my team to take you from 6 to 7 figures and level things up… just send me a message and put “Private” in the first line… tell me a little about your business and what you’d like to work on together, and I’ll get you all the details.