I’ve been in business since I was 18. I started my first brand straight out of school. It was an ethical, sustainable and handmade fashion label and I thought I knew who my target customer was because I was her. I couldn’t find what I wanted, so I created it, and then I marketed to women like me. If I was looking for an ethical and sustainable fashion solution, surely other women would be too, right?
Wrong. Kind of. It’s complicated. Here’s the thing about selling your products to people like yourself – there is no one else like you.
When it comes to marketing, selling, and trying to reach your target market, only one of your ideal customers should be a ‘you’ look-a-like, but it shouldn’t be your only target market.
Say you have a list of ten reasons why you love your own products, why they meet your needs, why they’re affordable for you, and why you need them. Those ten reasons are specific to you, your lifestyle, your income, your family situation, your location – your life. But when it comes to selling, you’re not trying to sell to yourself, you’re trying to sell to other people, which means they’re going to have different reasons for needing your product or service, they’re going to have different interests, and different reasons for buying.
And because we’re all such different human beings, your customer target market strategy needs to include different customer profiles too. ‘People like me’ should be one of them, but you’ll also need two or three other markets too, and if you’re posting content across any touch point in your business, whether it’s Instagram, your blogs or your newsletter, you need to make sure you’re speaking to those different target markets too.
Here’s an example from my content strategy.
When I ran The Fashion Advocate as an online store and it was one of Australia’s largest for ethical and sustainable fashion, beauty and lifestyle brands, I had four different target markets. They were very different groups of people with very different needs, so they needed very different content to connect with which meant creating different content for each different customer target market.
So how do you apply this method to your own fashion business?
You’ll need to really understand your customers, because the more you understand them, the easier it is to create specific content for them, and the easier it’ll be to convert them and sell to them. You need to understand their psychographic factors, their demographic factors and their buying behaviour too – because selling is all about understanding people.
If you’re new to customer demographics, psychographic factors, buying behaviour and target markets, don’t worry, you’re not alone. When I started my first fashion label, I didn’t start out running a business, I started out doing what I loved, winging it, making everything by hand, and learning as I went along. Later on, I added my TAFE courses, industry experience and Harvard Sustainable Business Strategy degree into the mix, but in the beginning – I knew nothing about business. Zilch, nada, zip.
But that’s the beauty of waking up every day with a purpose and a passion – if you have those two things, learning the business ropes and the strategy stuff is the easy part. Learning is empowering. Growing is empowering. Understanding new ways of doing business is exciting. And that’s what I want to help you do with my Customer Target Market Online Masterclass Course.
I want to give you the confidence, resources, support, guidance, strategies and steps to reach your goals faster, so you can work less and live more. I want to give you the templates, the guides and the help to figure out your target markets the easy way, so you can start selling more, now.
My Customer Target Market Online Masterclass Course is the solution to the growth challenges you’re experiencing, and I’d love to show you how to overcome them.
If you have a purpose and the passion to succeed – you’re two-thirds of the way there. Learning the strategy stuff is the easy part!
Claire x
