🗣️ Transcript
Hey. Welcome to your next lesson – “3 Boxes Your Target Market Must Tick”.
Here’s what you’ll learn:
- Why familiarity breeds success
- Why practice beats theory every time
- Why your market’s motivation matters
And in this one we’re going to talk about what makes a good market for you.
After all, just because you have a nice template for defining your target market, it doesn’t mean that any market you can describe will be viable.
How about:
Desert island castaways who want to return to civilization but don’t know how to build a boat.
I don’t think those people are buying courses in large numbers!
So in this lesson I’m going to give you some simple criteria to give you confidence that the market you have in mind will work for you.
We’re not aiming to comprehensively validate your target market at this stage. We’re just applying some common sense criteria to catch any major issues sooner rather than later.
So let’s get started with the first box you need to tick.
Firstly, your target market should be familiar to you.
Remember the earlier scenario where we had those five perfect people for your course? Well, you should feel like you understand those types of people pretty well.
You know what they want, how they think, what excites them, what frustrates them, those kinds of things.
And that’s important because it’s really tough to build a successful course for a group of people you only superficially understand.
I sometimes come across course creators who see a certain market as an opportunity, but they don’t really know that market inside out and end up making a bunch of hopeful assumptions that don’t line up with reality.
So where does this kind of intimate knowledge come from?
Well maybe you already work with this market.
Well, these people are customers or clients and your course is just an extension of what you already do. That’s a great situation to be in.
Or maybe you know this market well because you’re part of that market yourself.
For instance, maybe you understand people who are caregivers to elderly parents because you are a caregiver to an elderly parent.
Or maybe you’ve taken their journey already.
So perhaps you understand retail investors who are trying to get to grips with cryptocurrency because you did that for yourself.
What we’re really talking about here is empathy. And it’s the first of the three boxes to tick.
The second box is really an extension of the first. It’s not enough to just understand and empathise with your market; you need some practical experience with tackling that market’s goals and problems.
Again, the ideal situation is where you are already getting paid to help your target market and your course is just a way to streamline the whole process.
But equally you may have gained valuable experience by getting yourself to a certain point in the journey.
Many excellent courses were born out of their creator’s personal experiences of trying to solve their own problem or achieve a certain goal. Through trial and error they discover a process that works, and now they teach that process to others.
But what you shouldn’t do is build a course for a target market whose goal isn’t one you have experience achieving.
The third box to tick is that your target market must be motivated.
In other words, their desire to reach their goal or escape their problem must be strong enough for them to spend time and money on a course.
Just because someone’s interested in a particular goal or has a particular problem, that doesn’t mean they care enough to reach for their wallet.
So before you settle on a target market, it’s smart to find some evidence that they are actually spending money in pursuit of what they want (or don’t want.)
Again, the ideal situation is where people like this have already spent money with you in relation to their goal. So maybe they’ve paid you for coaching or training or a consultation.
If not, you’ll need to look elsewhere.
Amazon is a good place to start. See if there are any popular books that seem to target the market you’re considering. Obviously a book is a small investment for somebody to make but it’s a good starting point, and if you can’t find any popular books that’s an early warning sign that your market may not be the best choice.
Likewise, see if there are online courses already targeting a similar market. Even though it’s counterintuitive, targeting a market where there’s already competition is usually best because it shows that people are spending money.
You can also see if there are popular blogs or podcasts that would appeal to your target audience. Although people don’t pay for these directly, they cost money to produce and successful ones are usually selling their audiences something.
Of course, these days you can ask ChatGPT too. Try this query: “what evidence is there that people are willing to pay to learn more about X”.
So those are the three boxes your target market must tick.
In the next lesson we’re going to zoom in from your entire market to just one person.
See you there.