Who Do You Think You’re Talking To?

Why Understanding Your Target Market Is The Single Biggest Thing That Will Determine Your Success

Even before you start to market and sell your membership, you need to understand exactly who you’re selling to. Who do you want to join your membership site? 

Most business owners get this bit wrong…they start with the product, the ‘what’, rather than the ‘who’.

It’s crucial to know who you’re creating for, but plenty of businesses gloss over this step. And if they do address the who, they don’t do it in as much depth as necessary. 

They might have a membership selling home exercises for mums, believing they know their market as women with young children. But as you’ll discover, this kind of demographic profiling is just scratching the surface.

Why Your Target Market Matters Most

So many membership owners are missing this puzzle piece, getting caught up with USPs and niches, and then they wonder why their site isn’t getting much traction. The truth is – it’s not about you. It’s about your target market. 

Understanding your target market will shape your sales process, sales funnels, messaging, and every piece of content you produce. It will also shape your product, your content structure, and the flow your site takes.

Demographics Aren’t Enough

Surface-level demographics just don’t cut it anymore. They’re useful as a starting point, but the real work starts when you try to understand who your audience is on a deeper level. 

To create a targeted, effective membership site and supporting marketing campaign, you will need a solid understanding of who your ideal member is. The more detailed your description of this person, the better. 

Because by going into specifics, you’re able to narrow down exactly what you need to provide and how you can promote that in a way that speaks to your ideal client.

For example, do you want to target mums who want to get fit? If you stop there with your consumer research, you miss out on some vital clues about the lifestyle of your perfect member. By digging deeper, you may reveal that your client prefers to work out with other people – that they’re more motivated by real-time dialogue and classmates.

Armed with that, you might decide to offer live yoga classes geared towards mums with toddlers. You see, the more clearly you understand your target market, the more defined your membership and marketing will be. Then you become the obvious choice.

How To Dig Deep Into Your Target Market

It’s not as complicated as you might think. You just define your who, where, what, why and why not.

• Who
  The who gets you back to basics. When you’re first deciding what to offer in your membership, this is where you’ll start. Define attributes like gender, occupation, age and interests.

As well as this, get specific about anything more relevant to your membership idea, things like whether they’re a uni student, someone who just bought an investment property or someone who has just had children.

• Where
  This is a question a lot of businesses skim over. Is your target market in the UK or worldwide? The wording and content of your marketing will differ hugely depending on location. Culture is important to bear in mind too, as American marketing culture is very different from British. 

You can even take it more locally – the marketing for a rural vs. city-based audience will look totally different. 

• What
  Ask yourself, what’s the problem you’re going to solve? Define the issue your target market is having, ie mums wanting to get fit or new property investors trying to understand an ever-changing market. 
• Why
  Why would your target market care that you’re solving this problem for them? How serious is this problem and what kind of a solution are you offering them? 
• Why Not
  This question is frequently missed. Ask yourself why your target market would not take up your offer. Why would they scroll past your membership? If you can answer this, then you hold the key to overcoming any objections and converting a ‘no’ into a ‘sign me up!’.
  

Pains And Problems

You need to really understand the problems of your ideal client to connect with them and motivate them to buy from you. They’ll need to feel convinced that you know their issue inside and out before they will believe you are the best person or business to solve it. 

Create a breakdown of all of the pain points and roadblocks that your target market is coming up against. This will have a big effect on the way you style and create your membership content, as well as how you engage with potential members. Think of it like Google maps telling you where the hold-ups are – when you know, you can plan for it. It makes the journey much easier, quicker and more enjoyable.

Hopes And Dreams

Once you’ve identified the problems your ideal member faces, you can get an idea of their aspirations. What does your audience really want? Understand what their hopes and dreams are to create a product that will give exactly them what they want.

A mum interested in losing weight (problem) might be wishing that she could find workouts that involved her child (hope), making it fun for both of them. By identifying both the problem AND the ideal solution, you can deliver a membership that your audience truly values.

Ready To Get To Know Your Ideal Members?

Now you know why it’s so important to understand your target market, it’s time to crack on with getting to know your ideal members. Only then are you ready for your member site creation – and that’s where we come in.

When you need help setting up your membership for your target market, let us know and we can get you started with a demo of what we can do for you. After all, you are our ideal client…