Sometimes businesses have an excellent product, but they don’t realize who would benefit from it the most. Maybe the product was created with a specific market in mind to solve a pain point of theirs, but they didn’t understand that another market has the exact same pain point.
You might think that you’ve got your target market all figured out. You know exactly what pain point your product or service solves and you know who has that particular pain point. Or do you?
It’s possible that there are other demographics out there that have a similar pain point that you haven’t even considered. The drinkware company, Stanley, used to target blue-collar workers with physically demanding jobs for their large tumblers. You know, very heavily male industries. Don’t get me wrong, they did a great job of focusing their efforts on exactly who they thought needed their product. But when they thought outside the box that they put themselves in and started also marketing to everyone else who isn’t male but also gets very thirsty, their sales skyrocketed. Exponentially.
So today, I want you to sit back and engage in a thought experiment. Use the internet to help if you need. I want you to think about what you offer and what it solves. Then I want you to expand your thinking and see if there may be another market out there who might have similar pain points to the one you’re currently targeting (this is the part where the internet might be helpful). Is there one noteworthy that you can think of? Would also targeting that market be worthwhile?
Now, potentially pivoting your target market or adding in a secondary one is not something you should do on a whim. This thought experiment is only helpful in a few situations, like when you don’t seem to be making any headway at all with your current target market or when your business has grown enough that you feel confident that you can scale it even more.
If you’re currently getting exactly the right amount of business from your target market and you cannot handle adding on a larger workload at the moment, then you should keep doing exactly what you’re doing! It’s working for you and that’s excellent. But it’s also never a bad idea to sit back from time to time and assess your target market and make sure that you’re focusing on the right one.
All the best,
Ryanne Zender
Disclaimer: While marketing is based in part on statistics and psychology, it is not an exact science. Every business and market are unique. What may work for one business, will not necessarily work for another. There are no guarantees in marketing, and this post is for informational and educational purposes only and does not replace professional advice. You can check out the full list of disclaimers and disclosures here.
