Lesson 9 - Know Your Customers - As In Study Everything You Can

This is one I see so many people miss when it comes to building their business.  They take a guess at who their customer is and then hope their guess is close to right.  Or they make it really broad in that they want to help everyone scared that they're going to possibly miss that one person who might be interested.

As I started this, I thought I could utilize my existing audience from The Starters Club.  However, as I began laying out the content I wanted, and the focus of the event, I soon realized that wasn't going to happen.

So not only did I have to build an event by scratch, I had to start from scratch on everything!!!

I actually sat with someone today over coffee, and he asked me about the marketing, and how I pulled it off in such a short amount of time.

The answer was simple...

I was a mad Facebook and LinkedIn Ads machine.  It wasn't a set it and go, it was a set it, study it, tweak it, and then study it again.

I fell asleep thinking about ads, constantly trying to figure out how I could make changes to get right in front of my audience.

I won't get into detail about setting up ads on this post.  I've been running them now for several years.  However, as you're setting up your business and begin to run ads, the more you know exactly who your customer is, the more money you're going to save.

I had no list (see three months, one month Christmas/New Years, and no list, the odds were definitely against me).  I had to first find out who I could use to create a look-a-like audience.  So I downloaded my LinkedIn contact list and told Facebook to find people who looked like that.

I then added more potential likes that my customers could have and watched to see who was interacting.  I watched who wasn't just clicking on the ad, but looking more into the website.  Then the most important metric to track was who was converting.  Unfortunately, when you're building and are asking for a ticket purchase, it's a bit of a process to get to the purchase part.

I always explain this to my students, that the larger net you attempt to cast, the most it's going to cost to create and for the manpower to get it out in where you want it to go.

The more specific you can be, the less money you're going to spend.

Be specific, and here's my super important professional business advice:

Then test the crap out of them

Not only is knowing your audience crucial for you to find the right people to put the ads in front of them.  However, it's also crucial to know where you should put those ads.

Going after a group of CEO's?  They probably don't hang out on Facebook all day.

Are you a B2B shop?  LinkedIn could be a very powerful place for you to run your ads.

Do you have a more visual product to sell?  Pinterest and Instagram could be two incredible places for you.

Is your customer searching for something when they need your services?  Don't rule out Google Adwords just yet.

If you're not sure who your customer is, start asking questions to find out just that.  I know it's really exciting to jump in quickly to your business, but I can't stress enough how important it is to take a step back and do this whole thing first.

You will not only save a lot of money and time, you're going to save yourself a lot of headaches.  Save those headaches for the really necessary stuff.