Mistake No.5

Looking for New Customers in the Wrong Places

Going back to Marketing 101, we all know that good quality research can cut back on wasted time. One of the key factors in market research is knowing who your customers are and knowing where to find them.

The best of the best in marketing have already got this down pat, but it’s possible to still find marketing strategies which are targeting the wrong places. You’ll find that if you set up marketing strategies in very specific areas which your specific potential customers frequent, it will not only save you a lot of money, it will also save you time and bring in more conversions!

This may seem absolutely ludicrous that anyone would deliberately look in the wrong place for potential new customers and even worse, place advertisements and other marketing in the wrong places too. Surprisingly though, this happens all too often. That is why it’s critical to know who specifically your customers are and where they hang out.

For example, if you are running a business as a mortgage broker and one of your products is a home loan which requires no financial statements and the tiniest amount of paperwork, but at a slightly higher interest rate than normal. Who would this appeal to most? The answer might be self-employed people. (Can you see what we have done here? We have focused in specifically on
one product rather than trying to be all things to all people. This is an important element in marketing.)

So the next question to ask yourself would be: where do they hang out? What do they read? Who else is already speaking to them who is not a competitor? Taking all of this information into account, you could quickly create a list such as:
•Chambers of Commerce
•Breakfast networking groups
•or even Government funded events.
So where do your customers hang out? Isn’t that the best place to put your marketing message?

- Keith Banfield