Of anyone, I know that building a small, service-oriented business is hard work. I’ve had three businesses, including two very different approaches to web development, in the past nine years. All three have been service focused. Each has been successful. And all have required quite a bit of effort to plan, build and grow.
Of course, currently, I help small and independent professional businesses plan, develop, build and grow their business through the internet. I help my clients refocus their business objectives and marketing strategies to incorporate the web. Ideally, their websites and blogs become a hub for meeting and converting their target audience.
But here, many make a critical mistake. They think of their target audience (or target market) simply as a name for the group of people they’re trying to serve. In other words, they think of target audience as being a noun. If you remember your Schoolhouse Rock, “is a person, place or thing.” It simply names.
What a noun doesn’t do is describe – that would be an adjective. Nor does it speak to action – that would be a verb.
I like to think of the terms target audience or target market less nouns and more a verbs.
I think this way because I know that to create a successful business, you need to do more than just name your target audience. You also need to target your audience. In other words, actively engage in finding them, meeting them and nurturing them. In this way, target(ing) becomes an action…it becomes a verb.
So when you think about your target audience, think also about targeting your audience. This turns your noun into a verb; your naming something into your doing something.
So tell me, how do you see our target audience as a verb?�
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