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I like to ask the question Why?
Not entirely unlike a curious three year-old, I’m forever pestering people with my favorite follow-up inquiry in all types of situations.
- Why?
- Why did you do that?
- Why should I listen to this?
- Why is that the way it’s supposed to be?
I ask the question because I don’t just want to know something, I want to understand it.
In that vein, I think it’s important that before I share with you the shocking truth about target markets (which I pinky promise that I will do before the end of this post!), I need to explain why it is that we need them in the first place.
Reason #1: Our readers are stuck under the Niagara Falls of media blitzes every day.
Back in the Mad Men days of the 1950’s and 60’s, businesses had only three mediums to choose from when deciding how to advertise to their customers.
Radio, TV and newspapers were the only means of communicating with the masses and there were relatively few of each.
With a decent budget, a company could flood the market and reach at least 2/3 of the American population with a handful of well placed commercials.
Because there were so few forms of media, promoters didn’t have to worry so much about the right medium for reaching their target market.
It was the equivalent of simultaneously firing a thousand arrows at one target—you were just statistically bound to hit the bullseye.
Flash forward to 2012 and most of us have televisions with over 100 channels (mine has 894). Almost all of those channels show programming 24/7, from informercials to realty shows and everything in between.
Those TV shows compete for our attention with the internet (on our computers), the internet (on our mobile devices), the internet (on our gaming systems) and any magazines or newspapers that might have somehow found their way into our house.
When we go outside, things get amplified. We are inundated with billboards, mass transportation ads, ads in store windows, political signs on the roadway and even those unfortunate souls paid to dance around with signs on the corner in the summer heat. Someone is always trying to sell us something.
Our readers all face the same deluge of promotions every day.
It would take us millions of dollars to break through that downpour of information to reach a significant portion of the population and last I checked, none of us are slogging through the self-publishing process with a million dollar budget.
Worse, even if we did have a huge budget to spend on a media blitz, we would be lucky if even an eighth of the people we reached were actually converted into new readers.
Hence, the reason we need a specific focus to our marketing campaigns so we can find the most efficient and effective means to locate and engage with the readers who will appreciate us and our novels.
Speaking of the perfect population of readers…
Reason #2: Careers are made by fans, not readers.
J.K. Rowling, Stephanie Myer, Stephen King, Nicholas Sparks, John Irving and Nora Roberts have successful writing careers because they have fans, not because they have readers.
What’s the difference?
Allow me to show you Exhibit A:
These are the last five winners of American Idol (David Cook, Kris Allen, Lee Dewyze, Scotty McCreery and Phillip Phillips).
Um…..Am I the only one who sees a pattern?
Now, I’m sure each of these young fellas has some talent…but the real reason why five adorkably cute, dark-haired white dudes have won America’s karaoke crown is because the show’s biggest fans are boy-crazy teenage girls.
These shrieking, crying, sign-making, braces-wearing gaggle of ‘tweens are the ones who text, call and vote online for their faves every week. They’re also the ones who buy the show’s singles on iTunes after every show, line up to get tickets to the concerts and spend a week’s allowance on the winner’s new album when it finally hits stores.
Of course, other people still watch American Idol, too.
My parents tune in on a regular basis and have been known to occasionally vote (even in the face of my dramatic eye-rolling at participating in such a silly event). But to the show, viewers like my parents are just icing on their billion dollar cake.
It’s the teenagers who have made that show a cash cow success story, and American Idol demonstrates their appreciation by catering to those rabid fans with their guest appearances, commercials, branding and format.
Finding your rabid fans and catering your writing to them is what will give you a successful author career as well.
That’s why we need to have a serious meeting about target markets.
Once upon a time, we were harping on you guys about the importance of having a target market. We even gave you a handy inverted pyramid to help you find the bullseye and discover success.
But we discovered that even with the six pieces of demographic data (country, setting, age, gender, education and class) generated in our target market exercise, it was still a struggle to get a clear picture of your fanbase.
So now we need to build on your target market, making your focus even more specific. This will allow you to be as efficient and effective as possible in your marketing efforts (keywords: efficient and effective, a.k.a. the way you stay sane and manage to find time to actually write, which is what you really want to do).
How do we go about shrinking your target market?
We reduce it to one person.
Why?
You’ll find out in the next lesson.
Remember: you need to know your target market so we can work on whittling it down! If you haven’t done the target market exercise yet, be sure to work on it before the next lesson.
DISCUSSION TIME!
Like we discussed above, rabid fans are the key to success. Let’s examine this in your own reading habits! Which authors are you truly a fan of? Which ones do you merely read? What makes you connect with one author over another?
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