How to Overcome Uncertainty and Find Your Target Market

In 2020 and 2021, the global pandemic made things less easy for many businesses. This pandemic has plunged most businesses into deep uncertainty and economic woes.

Now you ought to work harder to remain relevant as a business.

Concentrating on a segment of the market and creating content or marketing is a great way to manage this uncertainty.

Being uncertain about the longevity of your business can lead to panic and feelings of impending doom.

Targeting everyone or a too-large part of the market is not the answer.

You know the old saying about the more people you talk to, the brighter your chances of selling? This may not work if you waste time talking to many people who have no interest in your business.

Even though the temptation to do this may come, it is best to resist. Also, small businesses can compete with corporations by identifying target markets.

A target market refers to a segment of potential customers to whom a company wants to sell its products and services.

A target market is also a group that a company chooses to direct its marketing activities.

Identifying the target market is an essential step in the development of a company’s marketing plan.

Targeting a specific market or audience does not mean your brand messaging will exclude certain people; target marketing allows you to concentrate your marketing efforts and resources on the people most likely to respond to you.

When asked who is your target market, you may likely say small businesses, startups, large corporations. But this a rather vague way to target.

Reaching out to these large groups is almost impossible. Instead, create a niche. For instance, a digital marketing agency could market to business owners with businesses with an income of $150,000+ in St Catherines, Ontario.

To define the market some more, the agency could target only those interested in Social media and influencer marketing. This market can also further pruned down certain types of business.

With a clear audience definition, it is easier to overcome uncertainties and also know where to find and how to get noticed by your target audience and grow.

Here are a few ways you can also overcome uncertainty and identify your target audience.

1. Know Your Product Offerings and Its Relevance

When you are juggling uncertainty and the target market, it is easy to lose sight of your ‘why’? Why are you in the business you do what you do?

You have to know your products and innovate with the market. Do you need to refine your messaging, do you need better graphics to communicate a strong brand?

Once you know your products, their positioning and how to optimize for the future, identify your target market. Who needs your interior design services?

What are the questions your potential customers asking before they hire? The answers to these questions will help you.

2. Prepare for Diverse Outcomes

It heightens uncertainty when we can’t control events, illness, accidents, natural disasters or a global pandemic. Or we feel when we feel our business is about to plateau earlier than we thought.

If you want to overcome uncertainty, prepare for many and perhaps a little surprising outcome.

Sometimes, even with the best business plans or strategies, it could seem as if we are not achieving the desired outcomes.

Instead of wondering what will happen next or losing faith in your business, you should take a chance or risk going ahead with a strategy you believe will work for your business.

This includes what your customers think of your brand, what your leadership style says about your company and your expansion efforts.

With your products or services, focus on the improvements you think the market will demand and experiment with pricing and new marketing strategies.

Will this work for your business? You don’t know, but if you don’t try anything new, you may never know what will work.

While this is not the most reassuring piece of information you may seek when you are uncertain, it is better to assume an open mind when seeking solutions and be ready to try different things to successfully identify your target market.

3. Examine Your Current Customer Base

Sometimes you are working with an obsolete customer database or a too large customer base, or you need to redefine the customers you have presently and what they do for. Do you also need to ask questions like:

Who are your customers?
Where can you find people like them? Why do they buy from you?
Where are they?

Questions help you know where to direct your efforts and energy both online and offline.

This activity helps you identify your customers you need to be going after and save time and effort crafting content or marketing for a too-large customer base, and hence on your real audience.

4. Know Your Financial Situation

Not knowing how good or bad things are in figures or numbers can lead to undue uncertainty.

If you don’t know your numbers, you are working blind and being ‘lost at sea’ can stop you from growing your business.

You must have a firm grasp of your financial situation as a business so you can adapt to business or market demands.

These numbers include knowing the number of leads you have, their conversion rates, the number of transactions your team handles within a specific timeframe and the average size of those transactions.

Also, having daily meetings with your sales team gives you visibility into the results their activities bring in. This will help you pinpoint the ideal target market.

Monitor and efficiently manage your expenditures, cash flow projections, profit margins and tax estimates. This reduces the number of surprise costs your business may typically incur.

This will help your business finances both in the long and short term.

When you know how bad or not things are in your business, you will have more confidence to define your audience.

When you also know where your numbers are coming from, you will have a firmer resolve than it channels your growth efforts in the right direction.

5. Manage Your Time Well

Uncertainty is linked with feeling overwhelmed with certain time-consuming tasks and the inability to focus on other important actions that help you connect with your target audience.

For instance, you could focus so much on creating content that we forget to focus on other aspects of marketing your business that could lead to growth.

You could track your time by batching related tasks. Batching actions help our brain stay on one mode of processing information and thus perform.

For instance, you perform content-related actions at the same time. This approach ensures you do not perform unrelated tasks and waste more time.

Properly managing time is also tracking time spent on one task and reducing it by focusing so you can do more with the allotted time.

It is also important as a business owner that you delegate or automate your processes to save time. For repetitive tasks, like scheduling social media posts or recurring billing, It is also important to use automation software.

Delegate tasks like creating content or handling customer service to your employees or outsource to freelancers so you can focus on more important tasks and grow your business.

6. Know the Psychographics of Your Target Market

When seeking to identify who your audience is. Who are its members, beyond numbers? Psychographics are the personal characteristics of a person, including lifestyle, personality, values, behaviour, and hobbies.

Correctly determine how your product or service will fit into your intended target’s unique lifestyle.

How and when will your target consume the product?

What unique features are most appealing to your intended target?

What media does your target turn to for reliable information?

Does your target read the newspaper, search online, or attend offline events?

Defining your target market constitutes the intricate part. It is that action that enables you to let go of all the other people and focus only on a narrow group. Tough, right? But oh, so worth it.

It is easier to figure out what you can use to reach them and what marketing messages will resonate with them. Instead of targeting everyone in your post or ZIP code, you can send it only to those who fit your criteria.

By defining or niching your target audience, you save money and get a better return on your investment.

Conclusion

Managing uncertainty while striving for growth is difficult, but it is achievable.

By actions that take you closer to your expansion goals and help you get the attention of your target audience, your business will grow.

About the Author

Eugen Spivak is a multi-award-winning author, business strategist, and a business coach. Eugen is the founder of the Canadian Institute of International Business, an organization focused on a better way to learn business!