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Finding Your Target Audience
2:48 with Paul BoagA discussion with your existing clients can yield opportunities to discover helpful ways to reach new ones.
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[Paul Boag] Okay, so you've made your decision to specialize.
0:00
You've got to find that target audience, and that's not easy.
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You need to decide on who you're going to specialize with.
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Now a good place to start is by looking at your existing clients.
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That will give you an idea of whether there are
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particular groups of people that you've already got some experience with.
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What we did at my company is we realized that we'd done a university website,
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and we thought that might be an interesting sector to specialize in.
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We had a really good working relationship with the client,
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and so we went to talk to them, and I'd recommend that you do the same.
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Go and find yourself a friendly client, sit down with them, and ask them
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about how they learn about their sector.
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Are there mailing lists that they're on that are dedicated to their sector?
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Are there forums that they read about their sector?
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Are there conferences that they attend?—or meet ups?
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or is there a trade publication?
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You find a group that has some form of community around it.
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So with that higher education example I gave, there was very much
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a community of people that talked to each other through mailing lists,
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and forums, and all of those other kinds of things.
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Once you have identified an audience like that—
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a community that you can reach out to—then things get really interesting.
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So how do you go about reaching this audience?
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Well a good starting point is to participate in the community surrounding that audience.
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Mailing lists and forums are great.
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Join in the conversation, but remember, don't get too spammy.
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Don't push your services, but just give advice.
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Another thing that you can do is offer to write for trade publications
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or blogs because they're usually desperate for content
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and if you're willing to put in the time they'll probably publish it.
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Another option is to attend or speak at conferences.
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Going along to conferences is a great way of networking
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and building relationships with the community you're targeting,
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and if you can speak at them, all the better,
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although, admittedly, not everybody is a natural speaker.
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Finally, you can write for your audience as well.
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You can start putting out blog posts that use the right key words
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that engage that audience and draw them in.
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Ultimately, there is one aim here, which is to provide content
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and real value to your audience, not to spam them,
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not to market them in the traditional sense, but to provide them something tangible,
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and that is what we're going to cover in the next video.
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