{"id":273,"date":"2011-11-07T18:20:00","date_gmt":"2011-11-07T18:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/?p=273"},"modified":"2016-09-27T14:00:35","modified_gmt":"2016-09-27T19:00:35","slug":"you-are-not-your-target-market-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/2011\/11\/you-are-not-your-target-market-part-1.html","title":{"rendered":"You are not your target market Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b>You are not your target market.<\/b> This simple sentence is powerful.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>It is my <a href=\"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/2011\/10\/how-to-get-more-volunteer-participation.html\">best advice for recruiting volunteers<\/a>. And on the plane ride home from BlogWorld, it inspired three more stories. Here&#8217;s the first one:<\/div>\n<div style=\"width: 250px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a title=\"Breakfast fun with #bwetravel and #bwetourism with @artofbackpackin posing by bjmccray, on Flickr\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/bjmccray\/6314849449\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Breakfast fun with #bwetravel and #bwetourism with @artofbackpackin posing\" src=\"https:\/\/farm7.static.flickr.com\/6057\/6314849449_8f6dc4096f_m.jpg\" width=\"240\" height=\"144\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Are you hanging around with peers, or customers?<\/p><\/div>\n<p><b>Quit hanging around with your own people. Go find the customers. <\/b><\/p>\n<p>I see many business owners or freelancers talking to their peers online and not talking to their target market.<\/p>\n<p>For example, I hear photographers saying they are hanging around online photography forums. Unless other photographers are your target market, that&#8217;s not marketing. (It might be research or networking, but those are different goals.)<\/p>\n<p>Think about (better yet, track) where you spend your time online. Are you talking mostly with peers? Do you spend your time talking with others who do the same thing? That time does not count as marketing. Redirect your marketing time to listening to and interacting with your target market.<\/p>\n<p><b>How do you find your target market online? You ask them.<\/b> Sounds simple, but few businesses actually do it.<\/p>\n<p>See also:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/2011\/11\/you-are-not-your-target-market-part-2.html\">You are not your target market Part 2: What you like doesn&#8217;t equate into what customers like.<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/2011\/11\/you-are-not-your-target-market-part-3.html\">You are not your target market Part 3: You know too much.<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/2011\/10\/how-to-get-more-volunteer-participation.html\">You are not your target market: How to get more volunteer participation.<\/a><br \/>\n<em>New to SmallBizSurvival.com? Take the <a href=\"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/guided-tour.html\"> Guided Tour<\/a>. Like what you see? <a href=\"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/get-updates.html\">Get our updates<\/a>. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>You are not your target market. This simple sentence is powerful. It is my best advice for recruiting volunteers. And on the plane ride home from BlogWorld, it inspired three more stories. Here&#8217;s the first one: Quit hanging around with your own people. Go find the customers. I see many business owners or freelancers talking [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","episode_type":"","audio_file":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","filesize_raw":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,7,17],"tags":[104],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=273"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4822,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273\/revisions\/4822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}