Dialogue Marketing: Identifying and Locating Your Ideal Client Demographic

Let’s take the concept of Dialogue Marketing and begin bringing it closer to home with a series of thought experiments.

Imagine for a moment that you could work with any client demographic you want. With the wave of a genie’s hand, people in that demographic audience would be incredibly receptive to your ideas and offers of help. They would pay whatever fee you set. But, as often seems the case with genies, there is a catch. You must be able to describe your client demographic by at least seven very specific characteristics. That’s because, the genie explains, his magic only goes so far…he has to be able to locate the exact group you want in order to make your wish come true.

Perhaps the client demographic you’d choose would come from the list of ideal target markets you generated in Exercise 3.4.2. Perhaps you’ve had additional ideas since. Pick one and begin here:

Exercise 4.1.1: How would you describe your ideal client demographic?

Pick at least seven of the following questions and answer them specifically for your ideal client demographic; answer more of them if you can. If you can’t answer the questions in detail, narrow your demographic further. Repeat the exercise as often as you’d like for additional client demographics of interest. I strongly encourage you to write out your answers:

• Where do they live?
• Where do they work?
• What do they do for a living?
• What do they read?
• Where and how do they recreate?
• What interests do they have?
• Where, online or in the physical world, can they be found (e.g., Walmart, gardening chat rooms, the university library)?
• With whom do they share their lives
• When they search the Internet, what kinds of information do they seek?
• What problems do they face?
• What services and products do they buy?
• What are their economic, political, cultural, social, etc. characteristics?

You’ll find that the remainder of this book will be much more relevant to you if you complete the last exercise before proceeding. Even if you complete it with a tentative ideal client demographic, that will serve the purpose of grounding your thinking for the remainder of our time together. You can always return to these exercises later and repeat them as you get clearer about who you most want to serve.

Copyright © 2006 by Tammy Lenski. All rights reserved.