Pick an Initial Target

[00:00:00]
>> So once you've got a prioritized list, you'll look at the first, I don't know, small number, three to six side. And what we're gonna do is at that top three to six, we're only gonna prioritize one. We're only gonna look at, we're gonna build our initial app around one, now, this might this freaks people out a lot.

[00:00:27]
The idea that we're gonna focus on such a small niche, and one that maybe isn't sustainable for the long term, and they really don't wanna do it, and everything about them pushes back against this. But as I I touched on earlier, with the pebble example that I gave, you're gonna have a far greater impact within the constraints of your limited time and budget if you concentrate your marketing efforts on a small area.

[00:00:59]
If you go too broad, it'll come back to bite you. We can always add other audiences later and expand out from it. And also, it's gonna lower your costs as well. If you go for a small niche, you will increase your word of mouth and you will lower any ad costs that you eventually have to do because you're going for long tail keywords.

[00:01:22]
So your overall marketing expenses will be much lower. And everybody freaks out and goes, turning away customers, and I totally get that. I even suffer from this as an agency owner, right? Because I will tend to target one sector at a time. And it's like, but I don't wanna turn away somebody from another sector.

[00:01:46]
And I don't, I'm not saying that, right? So your website for this app can still be fairly generic. So anyway, I wanted to move on to the subject of how to actually pick that initial audience you're going after, cuz we shortlisted it, and we got a load of information on them, and we've prioritized them and all the rest of them.

[00:02:10]
It doesn't necessarily mean you should go with the one at the top of the list, because, yeah, sure potential does matter, which audience you consider to have the most potential is an important reason to pick a particular group of people to target initially. However, there are other considerations.

[00:02:31]
Your experience matters as well. Are there particular audiences that you've gotten inside a knowledge of? Or experience of working alongside, that's a big, big bonus if you really know your audience well. But also passion, and this goes back to Mark and his abandoning landlords, or retailers, or whoever it was.

[00:02:57]
If you don't care, if you don't like the audience, if you don't wanna be working with them, don't work with them, you're gonna run out of steam real quick if you do that. And the final area I consider is community, which audience is the most vibrant community? Community makes a big difference because it's easier to learn about the sector and their innate needs if they're all talking to one another and already interacting with one another.

[00:03:31]
Also, you're more likely to get word of mouth recommendation. And your marketing efforts are gonna go further if there's a community and also to be honest communities have fun. You know that they're normally good places to get involved and meet people, I mean, you think about the development community.

[00:03:48]
It's great meeting other developers, and it's an enjoyable experience. So I would spend a bit of time researching the community that your audience is in, the one that looks, is the one that you wanna pick, right? So you've kind of decided, based on those other criteria, that you're gonna start with this audience.

[00:04:09]
But do a little bit of research into the community that surrounds your audience, who are the influencers? Who are the individuals who engage and nurture and promote the community? Because hopefully we'll be able to engage with those people and encourage them to promote our product along the way.

[00:04:30]
What blogs are in the community? Where do people go to learn, and read, and become more knowledgeable within that community of people? Because again, you could maybe contribute to that with topics that are related to your product. What groups exist within that community? Are there mailing lists or forums?

[00:04:53]
Are they all hanging out on a subreddit, all on Facebook groups? Where are they and how are they interacting with one another? And what events are going on Crochet International Law or Toothpick Convention Worldwide or there's always these weird and wonderful different kind of group meetings where people come together.

[00:05:21]
And these are, if you find yourself, you've got an audience which has got a vibrant community, your job is gonna be a lot easier, that's all I'm saying, right? So pick an audience, right? Using all the advice that I've given you, remember, you're not committing to this audience forever.

[00:05:41]
Remember, you're not turning away people outside of this audience, you're just using it. You just wanna see whether there's viability for your product with that particular audience. And if there's not, you can either go, well, this product isn't working or you can try a different audience, and rinse, and repeat, you need to start somewhere.