By: Felicia Pratt Ellis

Having an online business can be wonderful! It can give you the flexibility and freedom you need so you can live the life that you want to live.  But if you are not making any sales, an online business can become a headache pretty quickly.  You need those sales in order to keep your business, better yet your dreams alive, but you need those customers to get those sales, and in order to keep those sales you must have some sort of connection with your target audience.  You must have a message that resonates with them.

In order to connect with your audience you must first know who you are talking to.  Who are the ones that are going to purchase your product or service? Please don’t say everyone. When I first started out I thought that my services would be a good fit for anyone and everyone and this still might hold true, but the truth is the more I targeted everyone, the more no one heard me.  I could figure out what was wrong.  I had a good service that I know everyone could use but no one wanted it.  This is because I didn’t narrow down my audience enough so that I could talk to someone. My message cannot reach a single mom and a widowed woman at the same time.  Those are two different people with two different emotions so two different messages will be needed.  So to first connect with your customers you must figure out who you are talking to.

I don’t want to exclude anyone:

This is not about excluding people.  Currently my target audience is women who have been in business for more 3 or more years.  These women have full-time jobs, children and are married.  This doesn’t mean that a man can’t benefit from my services or what I have to say.  In fact I have had quite a few male clients that I have worked with. The point is that my message connects to women entrepreneurs trying to create a better, more flexible life for themselves and their family.  Because of this, I can relate to them, and speak their language and they know that I understand where they are coming from and my services meet their needs.  I couldn’t make this connection or continue to make sales if I was trying to reach everyone.

Action Steps:

I hope this makes sense for you.  I trust you really understand the value of knowing your target audience.  Knowing your audience will allow you to write better for them and to serve them with what they really need instead of what you think they need, and that’s what people will buy.

So your first step in this series is to figure out who is your target audience. Some ways to do this is to look at those who have already bought your product or services.  What are some traits these people have in common? Do they have kids? Married? Gender? Age? You can also think about the type of people you would prefer to work with.  These are just a few example of that should help you find your target audience.

Felicia Pratt is an author, WordPress Enthusiast and a Social Media Fanatic that supports women entrepreneurs who run their business online. She helps them connect with their customers and build their online presence so they can increase their visibility and provide consistency in their branding and marketing efforts. Through various entrepreneurial endeavors, Felicia has finally found her niche empowering women by helping them leverage their content effectively through social media and blog content management.