Market, Message, Medium….

          1.Market

Who are your customers? Are you B2B (business to Business) or B2C (Business to Customer)? Where is your customer base? What is their business sector? What is their turnover/ income bracket? What are their values? Who else has a similar target Customer?

These are all questions to ask yourself so you create a clear understanding of your target customer.Ideally you should be able to give them a name and address so that you are absolutely clear who they are.

The Sharper your focus the clearer your target the more likely you are to succeed. Your market must be set in context; for example for the next 12 months what do you estimate your annual sales will be?

How much of these amount will be repeat sales to existing customers, and how much will be to brand new customers?

What will be the range of sales value to individual customers over the year?

What is your average sales value per customer likely to be?

For example you may end up with a sales estimate of £100,000 and an average annual More questions and more answers are needed to refine your target market

sales target per customer of £5000 (Including repeat sales).

Having this context you know that if you have 20 customers to whom you sell £5000 worth of products or service, you will achieve your £100,000 sales target.

Let’s say that this 20 is made up of 15 existing customers and 5 new customers.

The scale of your challenge is now much clearer.

          2. Message 

Now you have clarity about your customer you must decide the message you wish to communicate.

The Key question is why should your customer buy from you rather than someone else?

In some cases, with new product or service, you may have to educate the customer and start by asking “why this product or service” does your business require you to first educate your potential customers about what it is you are selling?

You need to differentiate what you are selling and the way you sell it from your competitors.

The differentiation may be in the form of design, content, price, availability, flexibility, ease of access, ease of use, benefits provided etc.

You must stand out from your competitors and provide them with a compelling reason why they should by from you and not somebody else.

Once you have identified, discovered and distilled the essence of your offer your next task is to communicate this to your target market.

          3. Medium

It is only once you have clarified your target market, carefully considered the message you want the market to hear that you should begin looking at how this will be done.

Part of your differentiation may lie in the medium you choose to communicate your message to your market.

If everyone else uses printed advertising material or magazine advertising or a channel like an exhibition, can you do something different?  Would a video message work?  Successful businesses clearly understand who their target market is, what the message they will communicate is and how the communication should be sent to the market.