From a small business marketing point of view, knowing you audience has a lot to do with knowing their pains. What problems do they have in their life? Problems create needs. Needs your customers might not know they have. And when you know a person’s pains or needs and you can speak to that hurt by offering a solution to the pain. People will pay good money to have you solve their problems.

An easy exercise to gain some perspective on your audience is to create profiles of your customers. For example, if you’re in lawn care, your ideal customer is a homeowner who lives in a neighborhood where a high lawn standard has been set. But this is a person who does not enjoy yard work and also has the income level to pay a lawn service to do the work for them. Through a little forethought and research this type of customer profiling can be very effective in defining and knowing your audience.

Ask a lot of questions of those who are buying from you. Your current customers are an amazing source of information and knowledge into you audience. Ask them about why they use your product or service. Offer discounts for filling out surveys. Large corporations do this constantly. That is why your receipt is so long when you go to a large box store. Consider rewarding those who take time to provide feedback.

Last, be sure to test your knowledge. I am sure many of you think you know your audience and how to communicate to them. Have you tested that? No matter what form of communication you are using, always ask for feedback from someone who is in your ideal audience. Have them look at an ad and verbalize what the ad is saying to them. The same can be done with websites, brochures, and sales pitches.

It is key to put as much time, if not more, learning about your audience as you put into learning about your product or service.

Keep Chargin’ -PS

It sounded cool – just post my profile, invite others to link to me, and before long I’d be connected to a huge network of business people. Then what? That’s what I learned last Friday, when I met Mike O’Neil, one of the top Linkedin members and a trainer on how to get the most from a Linkedin account.

The Linkedin system offers such potential it’s hard to explain. Let’s just say, Linkedin has become an employee recruting tool, a powerful sales and marketing aide, a global social organization, an information gathering gold mine, and on, and on – limited only by the imagination of its users.

It’s free. It’s growing. It’s the standard for on-line business networking. It’s time. Join at www.Linkedin.com.

If you are in Northern Colorado, I highly recommend several upcoming classes being conducted by Viveka von Rosen, General Manager at The Executive Center. She’s got this stuff down cold and teaches others how to make the most of Linkedin. Check out Viveka’s Linkedin profile today.

P.S. After you join, invite me to your network. I’d like to share my network with you!