Everywhere you hear that before you dive into developing or creating any product, you should conduct market research.
I know, this sounds both terrifying and boring – many entrepreneurs skip this important step, which causes their business and brand growth to slow down or stop completely.
But why is market research so important?
Because market research helps you find your ideal clients, meaning your target audience.
If you know who your ideal clients are, you can discover what problems they’re looking to solve. This allows you to more effectively develop products and services that truly answer their questions and offer solutions to their problems.
You’re not guessing. You’re not hoping. You know exactly what they need.
Why Is this important from a branding perspective?
Because you position yourself as an expert during your brand building process.
If you don’t show your expertise to the right target audience, they won’t know what to do with your products or services.
Your brand story won’t speak to your ideal clients.
Imagine this: you create a beautiful product presentation. Beautiful photos, professional copy, everything’s perfect. And nobody buys it. Why? Because it’s not speaking to the people who should be buying it.
It’s like trying to sell luxury cars to college students. The car might be the best, but you’re offering it to the wrong audience.
Therefore, market research will be the foundation of everything you create in your business.
And from a marketing perspective?
It’s all about content.
Your content will bring new people into your community. Your content will build brand awareness in people, which makes them want to connect with you.
But if you don’t know who you’re talking to, your content won’t work either.
Now let’s look at a few things you absolutely must understand about your ideal clients.
Demographics – Know them specifically
Demographics show what you absolutely need to know about your ideal client. For example: They just finished college. Or this person is an entrepreneurial mother raising a young child.
But – and this is important – don’t think only in generalities. Don’t just focus on men or women in general.
Get to know your target audience specifically. The better you know them and narrow down the circle, the easier it is to find solutions to their problems.
Many entrepreneurs think: “The wider my audience, the more people I reach, the more customers I’ll have.”
But the reality? It works exactly the opposite.
The more specific you are, the better you know your target audience, the better you can address them. And the more they’ll feel that “oh, this is for me, this person understands me.”
What problem does your target audience face?
Every single business is built on solving problems.
If you don’t know or don’t understand what your target audience’s problem is, it’s very difficult to sell them anything.
Let me show you a concrete example from my own business.
For example, my new target audience is entrepreneurial mothers who have small children and constantly suffer from time shortage. They want to work on their business, but it’s almost impossible because of the small child. That’s why they feel their business isn’t progressing, they don’t have enough time for the little one, and they also need to perform in family life.
The product I’ll create is a program or workshop that teaches these mothers how to prepare their schedule 3 months in advance for their business. How to plan, set goals, and how to work efficiently in their business for 1-2 hours daily, thereby ensuring financial stability.
To be able to sell them my program, what do I need to do?
First: I need to understand where my target audience is now.
Not where they were 5 years ago. Not where they’ll be in 2 years. But now. In this moment.
Because if I offer a solution to their current problem, I’m relevant. If I’m addressing past or future problems, I’m not.
Second: What they feel about this problem – this is the pain point.
From a marketing perspective, this is all important because understanding the target audience allows me to connect with my ideal client. For them, it makes it possible to feel that their problems are heard and understood.
When you precisely describe their pain, they’ll say: “You get me. You know how I feel.”
And that’s when trust begins. That’s when the connection starts.
Third: Where they want to get to with solving their problem or after.
What’s their dream situation? What do they want to achieve?
Staying with the mother example: they want to have time for everything. For the business, for the child, for the family, for themselves. And be financially stable too.
This is their dream. And your product or service will bring them closer to this.
Fourth: Why haven’t they done anything yet to solve their problem?
And here comes the magic.
When you start examining this point, you’ll encounter many objections.
“I don’t have time.” “I don’t have money.” “I don’t know how to start.” “I’m afraid it won’t work.” “I already tried something else and it didn’t work out.”
However, these are incredibly useful for you. Why?
Because objections are actually problems that you need to “deliver” solutions for.
If mothers say “I don’t have time for a workshop,” you create an online program they can watch anytime.
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