The biggest mistake most people make in marketing believes that everyone is their target market. With this attitude, they join groups and attend events where there are relatively few who would be in the market for their services. The critical question for you business is, "How do you locate those settings where you'll encounter the highest proportion of your target market and it's an appropriate business setting?" Here are a few ideas.
Consider professional associations specific to the field.:
If you do websites for "green" businesses, what trade associations do they belong to? If your company works with retail chains to do cost cutting, what associations do their CEO's belong to? Chambers of Commerce are OK for some types of business owners - if your services would be relevant to many of the members there. When considering clubs and associations, visit a few times and check out how many of your target market members attend - before you decide to join.
Look at the possibility of writing a series of articles and offering them to a trade publication (that your targeted market members read) for their newsletter:
These would need to be full of extremely valuable information. It would have to be a long enough series that readers would look forward to what you have to say each month. Again, you'll be looking for trade associations whose members are your target market. If your specialty is helping food packaging companies streamline operations or delivery, you'd look for a newsletter put out by their trade associations.
If you're a reasonably good speaker, you could put together 2-3 powerful presentations that deliver valuable information needed by your market:
Then, look for ways to get in front of groups that your target market attends. Most likely, this is not service clubs like Rotary, Moose, Elks, or such as these. Do research about where you could find a concentration of your target market. Ask to be scheduled as a speaker.
Decide that locating groups of your target market is a research project:
Go to the library and ask the librarian for help. Work on developing a list of groups, associations, clubs, and meetings. Then set yourself the task of "researching" these groups. Call up the membership and ask for information about the group, and about attending a meeting or two.
Set yourself a specific goal of researching each group by attending:
Perhaps, decide you'll check out one group a week or two a month. This will be different for everyone business, depending on your free time, availability of groups, and your tolerance for such efforts. Just remember that your business success depends on your efforts to locate and affiliate with your target market.
Go to the meetings with the intention of finding a few groups that are right for your business:
Ascertain the prevalence of your target market, how enjoyable the group is and the likelihood that the group would be beneficial for your business. Don't be in a rush to join any group until you've assessed many or most of those on your list. Join two or three and attend regularly.
