Jim Edwards and Stew Smith discuss creating a series of podcasts focused on the STARTER KIT: Online Business Goals: This week’s topic is Knowing Your Market and Asking the Question – Are You Marketing Your Market Correctly.
Where are your future customers? The people who want to give you money for what you sell? Recommendations on social media? Newsletters? Blogs? Other content?
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Jim Edwards: Hey everybody, Jim Edwards here and welcome back to the Sales Copywriting and Content Marketing Hacks podcast…
I’m your host Jim Edwards along with my co-host and podcast, and Stew Smith…
And…
Stew Smith: hello…
Jim Edwards: Wow, I sound like I’m making a political speech…
So today we want to welcome you to Episode 83 Stew is over there putting chap-stick on, I guess as you’re getting ready to do some serious talking…
Stew Smith: I’m ready.
Jim Edwards: We are going to be talking about you are marketing your market correctly?
I have no idea what that topic is all about…
So please, Stew enlighten us.
What are we talked about today?
Stew Smith: Yes…
Well, this is part three of a series your online business starter kit…
Remember, podcast 80 was a number one podcast 80, 82
Jim Edwards: 81,82…
Number three.
Stew Smith: This is the third one.
So anyway, we are talking about what you need to have an online business. Where do you need to invest?
How about that?
In yourself and your products and your outsourcing and all of that to have an online business if you want to take your current business online…
So anyway, today is about the market.
And, are you marketing your market correctly?
Especially when you’re online?
Now, it doesn’t have to be online, it can be a local option as well…
But are you marketing your market correctly?
So I’m going to ask you a couple of questions…
Jim Edwards: So what you’re saying is that like if you’re a veterinarian and antique store, a massage parlor, a bar, a restaurant, dry cleaner, this is just as important as if you’re selling eBooks, courses, coaching, online training, any of that stuff…
Stew Smith: Absolutely.
Jim Edwards: Okay, absolutely.
Stew Smith: You got to ask yourself, are you marketing your market correctly?
Or is your business potential customer your market where you think they are?
Jim Edwards: Okay, awesome…
So, just talking about your potential market and stuff, I just threw this up on the screen…
If you’re listening to this and can’t see this basically have a Venn diagram, showing what your niche market, your perfect niche market would be for you to be an authentic expert, or an authentic value provider might be another way of looking at it…
If you’d like to see this amazing graphic, then you need to go to our Facebook group and join the group so that you’ll be able to see this or if we have the video version up on YouTube, you can watch it there…
Stew Smith: Yep, Podcast 83, you will be able to find it.
Jim Edwards: I think the biggest thing to understand if you’re going and just to get the discussion started is to market to your market correctly, is not only do you need to know where they are but you got to know what’s making them tick, what motivates them what actually gets them to take action. Is it…
And this goes back to the stuff that we talked about inside of copywriting secrets on page 16 which is the reasons why people buy to make money save money save time, avoid effort, escape mental or physical pain, get more comfort, achieve greater cleanliness or hygiene to attain better health, gain, praise, feel more love increase their popularity or social status.
I did all that on one breath, by the way.
Stew Smith: Nice.
Jim Edwards: But that’s part of it…
So you got to know where they are, but you got to know what they want…
Stew Smith: And who they are…
Jim Edwards: Okay, what do you mean and who they are…
Stew Smith: You just got to know who they are.
Right?
You got to know, like, I am not.
I’m assuming everybody wants one of my Navy SEAL books.
Okay, there is a group of people that want to work out in that method?
Maybe they want to serve in that capacity…
Maybe they just want some hard workouts that don’t require a whole lot of equipment.
Right?
So there is a market there that has a little bit more of a bigger window than just the 19-year-old kid that wants to go to SEAL training…
Right…
Jim Edwards: So what you’re saying is who they are, is a group of people that want the same result that how to produce and can prove that you can produce those results…
Stew Smith: Yes…
Jim Edwards: Ultimately, that’s it.
I mean, that’s, that’s a niche market.
And so if whether you’re if you’re a dry cleaner, then the people who you want are the people who want freshly pressed shirts with just the right amount of starch and they don’t want somebody to burn holes in their clothes or lose their clothes or any of that other stuff.
I mean, it all starts with you’re absolutely right…
It starts with the who and what result or results do they want?
And once you know that, then what you do is you look around and say, okay, where are these people?
So if it’s online, it’s actually easier online than anywhere else.
I can’t imagine trying to start an offline business what a pain in the ass that would be and how risky that is.
Stew Smith: So hard, but you’d still do online marketing.
Jim Edwards: Right.
Stew Smith: Right to people…
Jim Edwards: But if you’re geographically based as you’ve been to my house, you drove through Matthews you got if you blink you’re done.
I mean, it’s two blocks long we got a Hardee’s we got a Mexican restaurant, which is excellent, by the way.
Yeah, we got a Food Lion.
We got a strip mall Chinese food place, but there’s no strip mall there they’re just like right next to the Food Lion there’s nothing else it’s like this the world’s smallest strip mall, its Food Lion and the Chinese place that’s it…
Um and we got another restaurant that I don’t really like, but everybody else likes, and then we got a little deli, so we got these little stores that are there’s like an antique place there’s a guy as a chiropractor who shows up once a week there no seriously his office hours are Thursday.
He’s there, but you think about that those people could still be killing it if they had an online business component.
The little assignment store the, this an assignment store is right a little I didn’t know until Terry told me the other day I was like what, what is that
Stew Smith: Consignment?
Jim Edwards: That’s what it is consignment…
Yeah, I’m not the sharpest tool in the shed dude…
Um, but it consignment store…
They could be crushing it. If they were listing stuff on eBay, absolutely had a list of people that were following them because they were doing cool updates and other things…
And then they said, hey, look at new arrivals.
And they could even have their own little, they could sell the stuff on their own site and not have to pay the eBay fees and other things.
It’s, but it comes down to knowing who your audience is and what they want, what are their problems?
What are their questions, what are their roadblocks?
What are their desires?
What are the payoffs that they want?
All of these things?
What interests them?
What do they like reading about?
What are the things that they’re there that turn them on?
Did that the majority of Americans now statistically, get their news?
Where do you think they get their news from?
What sider news?
Stew Smith: Don’t tell me social media.
Jim Edwards: Facebook.
Ah, the majority of people in this country get their primary news source news gathering source is Facebook.
I don’t know what the percentage is, I don’t know the exact statistics, and I’m sure it’s been twisted around some kind of way that like three people did it, but somehow it became the majority of Americans.
But that’s good news for us because we can create our own news…
That’s really what we do as content marketers are we create our own news.
Stew writes, how many articles a week three?
Stew Smith: At least.
Okay, I create news when I do the Jim Edwards method or not to Jim Edwards…
Well, when I do the Jim Edwards method, it’s just paid news…
But when I do the letting the chickens out with Jim which Nancy’s pissed at me because I have only done once in the last week and she’s like, your engagement dropping and you really
“Yes, honey, okay.”
“But a bit a little busy.”
So the person, though, is that we create our own news…
That’s if you think about it…
Oh, sure…
And, and so what news do people that are interested in what you’re teaching?
What news do they want?
And if you look at the news now, the vast majority of the news is all opinion.
Because we’re in a 24-hour news cycle.
Now, most news shows are opinions of people about events and people, and what were they thinking, and what did this mean?
And what’s happening?
So guess what, there’s an old saying, opinions are like blank, there’s a formula for you.
Opinions are like blank, everybody’s got one, and they all stink.
So the point is that you have an opinion.
Go start using your opinion, to get people to follow you can use it to build your business and the best people to follow you are the people who are in your native niche market.
Stew Smith: Yeah, absolutely.
So when you are, once again, I read highly recommend the Jim Edwards method wizard, the avatar, finding out your avatar, because that really does help you better understand who that person is in your niche market almost makes it a single person, that you can focus your creative writing for…
But the thing is if you have a younger audience, like if you try to go after, kids in their teens or early 20s you have to really stay on top of how they communicate because I would say in the last 10 years, those guys have gone from ditching Facebook to going into Instagram, to going into Snapchat to go into Tik Tok…
They’re all over the place, and they change every couple of years as a majority of their the way where they are, where they’re hanging out to see YouTube is still up there as well, but you just have to be aware of where that age group audience is, so I tend to focus on my younger crowd with Instagram posts and videos and information.
And then my older crowd, I tend to go towards the Facebook side, the
Jim Edwards: Facebook’s,
Stew Smith: Yeah, 40 and overcrowd…
And then, of course, I post articles on both and so it’s a way to add that content to those two groups that make a majority of my online store.
I mean, most of my online store traffic comes from those two social media groups.
Jim Edwards: right.
But you also use third party sites specifically military.com to, to give yourself credibility on those other sites.
That’s part of the game too is by being seen in these different places.
People will look for you on social media, and then they can come into your fold, and eventually, they can make it over onto your email list…
But the big thing to understand is that all of these are people that want some sort of a result of how to help them produce, but you’re talking about things that are important to them…
You really understand who, and since you understand who you can go find them where they are.
If you didn’t know exactly who they were, You would not be able to go find them it would all just shot in the dark.
Stew Smith: Right.
Jim Edwards: Instead of being able to do this with laser precision, and you brought something up that I’m going to share…
I’m talking about the avatar profile that we help people create in the Jim Edwards method premium on the easy online wizards.
This is a really cool piece of software that helps you to analyze your avatar your ideal customer down in a way that is just absolutely spot on.
And then Stew loves to take these and use them is that the stuff that I don’t consider sales copy, Stew is like, man, this is great, man this is great content, like how did you do this?
Um, but like, here’s an example…
I’m going to read this…
It’ll take like, two minutes and I’m going to do this as a story.
Okay…
My avatar’s name is Fred…
Fred is a struggling part-time writer who dreams of becoming a New York Times bestselling author.
Currently, Fred’s focus is on eBook promotion.
Content Marketing.
Ultimately, Fred really wants to stop working for a boss, and right full time right this minute Fred would be ecstatic if he could make more book sales, get more newsletter subscribers and stop spending so much on ads and start making money selling his books…
Unfortunately, Fred still needs to figure out how to get more exposure without going broke buying ads stand out from the crowd of all the other authors in the same niche and make more than just a couple of bucks off each book sale…
Fred’s also really frustrated by the fact that Amazon’s super crowded with competing authors, Facebook, and social media feel like yelling into an abandoned building.
And none of the experts agree on exactly what you should do to sell more books…
Plus, he still feels he needs to get the answers to these questions before he can move forward…
How do I build a real business around my book?
How do I turn my book from a hobby that doesn’t cost me money into a full-time streaming income?
How do I use social media to help me sell more books?
Fred’s also hung up on the idea that selling is sleazy and manipulative…
I’m an author, not a salesperson, and bookselling is actually the publisher’s job…
Not the author’s job…
In fact, he feels like traditional publishers actually don’t want him to succeed with an eBook promotion or content marketing.
When all is said and done, Fred just wants to live the dream lifestyle of a successful author, make a difference, and an impact on the world and do something he loves and make money doing it…
To help Fred I would invite him to check out my software author wizards at author wizards calm so he can experience true freedom as an author doing what he loves, without having to write a new book every week, and I promise to show him how to enjoy Rockstar author status, sell truckloads of books and build a rabid tribe of followers and fans and as little as 15 minutes a day…
Now, that right there, that is called knowing your ideal customer, because now I have literally a lifetime supply of news and content that I can create for Fred to build my own attractive character, where he’s going to see me as the answer to his prayers when I start drawing from my experience, my knowledge, things that have happened mistakes, I’ve made all these different things, I answer his questions…
And the thing is, especially in the online world, the answer to these questions changes and changes really fast.
How do I build a real business around my book?
The way we answer that question now is completely different than how we would have answered the question 20 years ago?
Stew Smith: Sure…
Jim Edwards: It’s just not, I mean, and it’s completely different than how we would have answered it five years ago…
And it is significantly different than how we would have answered it a year ago…
Because one of the things building a business around your book would be to go get on everybody’s stage and go speak everywhere, you can and become a speaker and go to all these conferences.
Well, guess what?
I am not nobody doing conferences now.
So you got to learn how to sell from the virtual stage, how to create your platform, all these different things that we now when we know this, we never run out of stuff to be able to market correctly.
Plus, we can go find where people are dealing with these issues online so that we can put our message in front of them.
So knowing your avatar when you ask them, I say, “Hey, who’s your avatar?”
And I love it when I get an answer, like, “Oh, it’s speakers and coaches and professional women.”
Oh,
okay…
And, and they think because they’re focused on like, the fact that its women, or its people over 55, or it’s baby boomers…
And that’s something that is going to just bite your butt…
If you try and sell it to everybody…
You’ve got to know it’s the difference between demographics and psychographics…
What works online?
Yes, there are Some demographics if, okay, people over 55 are the ones who buy from me…
Great.
That’s one little box that you tick your ad setup.
But if you don’t know the psychographics of all those people over 55, you’re throwing darts at it’s like throwing darts at a stock chart…
In the newspaper…
Remember, in the newspaper, they used to list all the stocks, that the stock paid like two
pages,
and you could throw darts at it and probably pick just as good a winner as you could any other kind of way you’re doing the exact same thing.
You got to know them.
If you want to market your market correctly, you’ve got to know exactly who they are.
And once who they are, then you figure out where they are, and start putting your message in front of them.
If you do it any other way, you’re just spending your child’s college fund on beer and hookers.
And that’s just not a smart investment.
Stew Smith: I would agree with that. I also did an avatar, but I named him Freddie, not Fred.
Jim Edwards: Freddie.
Stew Smith: Yeah, in fact, I wrote an article about my avatar.
Jim Edwards: I know you did.
And how did that do for you?
Stew Smith: Very well.
In fact, you won’t see it.
Jim Edwards: I would love to see it, please do…
Yeah…
I remember when he did that…
And I was like, Damn, Stu, stop turning this stuff into copy and stuff…
It’s just not that’s not it.
Stew Smith: Yeah, so I did the same thing as you did.
Just answered the questions in the wizard and came up with this cool little graphic.
This is the stages of a seal training pipeline you got Freddy the frog here…
That means you’re a frogman.
But you start off as Bootcamp as larva, little tadpole, turn into a little frog and then your frogman, so just funny picture…
So anyway, I did the same thing, like this…
Jim Edwards: Holding What is he holding a stick of dynamite and has a cigar in his mouth.
Stew Smith: Okay, just rugged old frogman, so that’s an old school that’s like UDT level art back there, but anyway I did the same thing I wrote up all the SpecOps candidates out there read about Freddy posted some old high school football pics talking about when.
Jim Edwards: Which one are you which would number you out here number of if you were you tight end no this
Stew Smith: I was a guard okay I was on offense but okay I played guard every now and then but as the main linebacker but anyway so I get them up high school kid wanting to go to SEAL training, and he is ready, and he’s going wanting to do all these challenging things, and he’s not really preparing himself, but it does the reads the same way as what Jim just read.
Even comes out with these questions, how can I become a better swimmer runner, click here.
Jim Edwards: Oh, look at you.
Answering the questions with “Click here for more information stuff.”
Yeah…
Stew Smith: Yeah, how can I prevent injuries and deal with aches and pains, so they don’t stop me or waste more time, click here…
Right…
And then, just and then after that it’s, I teach them a little bit about, some of the programs that are out there to help them and yeah, there you go.
There you go.
Jim Edwards: Is it weird if you walk around your neighborhood with night vision and try and sneak around, so nobody ever finds you?
Stew Smith: No, but in your neighborhood?
Yeah…
Okay…
My neighborhood, it’d be a little weird…
Stew Smith: Just as night vision wouldn’t work in my neighborhood, because all the bright lights go on…
Oh, yep…
Yeah…
Jim Edwards: Okay, just curious…
Just random questions…
Stew Smith: Do you have any? Do you have any infrared?
I do, that’s fine…
You can see all the bands or critters out there.
Jim Edwards: I can get the mount so that I could have the I can have the why I got the white phosphorus, not the green, white phosphorus…
Awesome…
And then I was thinking on the other eye, I might get thermal.
The difference, though, is the magnification is different.
And I’m worried that I might fall and hurt myself,
Stew Smith: you lose some depth perception for sure.
Jim Edwards: Yeah, I don’t have that anyway.
All right.
How do
we wrap this up?
We’re marketing our market…
And then the big thing is, I want you to just ask the question, are you marketing your market correctly?
And then think about all the little things that we have discussed…
Jim’s graphic back there…
And, are you taking these into account?
And then think about where your market is, where are they now?
Are they Sunday morning, Facebook users?
A lot of people use Facebook, they catch up on Facebook on Sunday morning.
They don’t watch it for the rest of the week.
Some people do it every day.
So, use that find out where that market is.
Are they on Facebook?
Are they on another social media platform?
And then, there you can put ads on those social media platforms if you prefer, but I prefer just putting in good content, so it is shared throughout the network of your market.
Jim Edwards: I do both.
Stew Smith: Yeah, I’ll do both too.
I see some of yours now.
I like it.
Yeah, well, cool.
Jim Edwards: Well, wrap it up Stew bring us home, buddy…
Stew Smith: Yeah…
So anyway, this was this part three of the online business starter kit…
Knowing Your Market.
And Jim did a really good job explaining kind of like the parts of your market that all go together, what makes your market what makes your niche market.
And you just have to simply ask, “Am I marketing my market correctly?”
Right, and if you think there’s any gray area. They’re that maybe you could market it better, ask questions, to say, Hey, this is my market. Where are they?
Where do you think they are?”
Jim Edwards: Yeah.
Stew Smith: Might be newspaper ads might be another form of media are just better ads than what you’re doing now…
Once you understand really understand your avatar, Vicky in the live audience just said, I’m going to revisit my avatar…
And I gave her a thumbs up for that…
I didn’t give her the Huggy creepy thing, but I gave her a thumbs up…
That’s, um, I don’t think it’s appropriate for a man to give the Huggy thing to a lady he’s not married to.
Stew Smith: I think that’s a good point.
Jim Edwards: So I don’t think it’s appropriate.
Stew Smith: Um, oh, by the way, nice haircut.
Jim Edwards: Thank you.
Yeah, I got them all cut.
So my wife said the hair in your nose on your ears is longer than the hair on your head.
well said
Thanks, honey.
That’s quite the compliment.
Hey, what was I saying?
I forget, anyway.
Oh, once your avatar really well, that’s going to massively improve your ability to market correctly, no matter what type of marketing you’re doing, because you can really hone in.
Because going back to the start of this whole thing, ultimately, when someone gives us money, they’re giving us money because they believe we help them achieve a result that they want to achieve.
So I’m trying to think of any exception to the rule.
I mean, even somebody who gives the money in church is giving money because they believe the result is that it them what they want to help the church to keep the doors open.
They want to, do what they’re supposed to do if they believe in the 10%, tithing thing, just always that stuff, it always comes back to, when there’s a value exchange, there’s a value exchange because the person believes that they’re going to get some sort of a result…
And if you really analyze, okay, if that’s true, what is the result that I’m actually selling?
It could be an emotional result.
I mean, it’s got everything’s got an emotional component to it…
But what is the result?
I mean, I’m selling a clean shirt with hassle-free delivery and next day service with a smile and that’s one result…
But then how can you stack additional results and benefits and make it even more amazing, but you have to start with that kernel of the result, and then build from there.
And I think people get lost when they start throwing in all kinds of other stuff…
It’s like what is the core result that people are getting from you Before you start getting off fancy and Ninja with it, and I think I need to think about this you can sell from looking at me like this.
My wheels are spinning with that thought.
Stew Smith: We can address that definitely on another related podcast, I would say this, we provide a path, we provide programming, right for whatever that goal is…
And the purchaser, the customer has to provide the work, right?
I mean, because you can’t just buy this and then everything works out for you…
Right, there’s a level of work that is expected of you when you do it, but we might have created a nice path for you that you don’t go through the same hiccups as someone who’s doing it without a path.
Jim Edwards: Sure…
Stew Smith: Right. So I mean, that is kind of where I focus my some of my markets On-site, neat idea…
I’m probably going to post something today on it…
But I’m going to make this blanket statement, right about you about what we do…
Because if you go to that avatar wizard, fill that thing out, but fill it out, and then write an article about it.
And apply your journey to that avatar a little bit because I know not everybody has the same journey as their avatar.
But most of us do.
Most of us are selling a, in a market that we have a lot of experience in…
And we’ve had some lessons learned along the way…
And if you can do that, one it makes for really good content…
But two, you’ll find that you can really take that story and understand your market even better…
Because you understand those needs of that person because you were that person.
Jim Edwards: you just gave me an idea I don’t know what this, but I just wrote down the idea combined avatar wizard with the Epiphany Bridge or Origin Story was.
Stew Smith: Yes…
There you go…
Jim Edwards: It’s like I figure if you could do that, that would that’s worth just playing with on the beach one day just thinking through what would what kind of result would that produce?
Gordon makes made a good comment in here he said to start with the result and work backward.
That’s absolutely one way of doing that.
You can win when we look at this graphic…
You’re the perfect niche, the result, the value exchange right there in the middle…
You can start with that…
And then you can define, okay, who’s the group of people who wants the same result?
What experience do I have that proves that I know how to produce this result, and what knowledge and skills and tools training justify me doing this?
So you can start with the result and work backward.
When we did the training, I started, I went clockwise from the knowledge and ended up in the middle where we had the perfect value exchange the result, but you can start with the result and fill in the rest.
It’s like, it’s like a puzzle.
You don’t have to do a puzzle with you don’t have to start with piece one and go to piece 500.
You can start with piece 399.
And as long as the whole puzzle gets put together, it doesn’t matter where you start…
Because but it’ll help you when you got one starting point, then you can kind of fill in the rest and find the parts that you need…
Yeah, that’s a great point…
Okay, Jason said, “When are you creating that wizard, Jim?”
I have no idea…
But I’m going to think together…
Stew Smith: What I would do is go to the avatar, go through it, go through the Epiphany bridge or the hero’s journey…
The wizard goes through it, and then just combine the two, and you may see they fit really well together.
Jim Edwards: Yeah, maybe that’s what I’ll do is I’ll, I’ll fill them out…
And then I’ll look and see kind of how they fit together…
And then what a combination wizard would look like to see, what kind of results do you get and stuff?
Stew Smith: Yeah, see if you can put your avatar wizard into the hero’s journey.
All your responses.
Jim Edwards: I’m so excited Stew!
I can’t wait.
Cool…
All right…
Well, I think we beat this horse to death because I got another meeting coming up.
But this was fun…
And hopefully, you guys enjoyed this.
If you did, please let us know in the Q&A in the questions in the comments and stuff.
If you enjoy this, we have to go to have a surprise for you next week.
Students have been working on we’re going to reveal, don’t tell them what it is done, but it’s kind of a premier.
Stew Smith: Oh, yeah.
Jim Edwards: You didn’t even know what the hell I was talking.
Stew Smith: I did not
know.
Jim Edwards: I was like what the
hell was Oh yeah…
Oh yeah, I better go check my account…
Stew Smith: Hopefully, I’ll have that up sooner than later.
All right, cool this week.
Jim Edwards: All right.
Well, that’s all we got.
I got a run…
I enjoyed having you all…
Please do LIKE, SHARE tag some people that are in the group.
Stew Smith: I think we’re up almost to like, you got to be close to 19.
Jim Edwards: Right. We got we’ve right now we have 18,984 members in the group…
Stew Smith: Nice…
Jim Edwards: So that’s pretty cool…
I remember when the group had under 1000…
Stew Smith: So that wasn’t long ago…
Jim Edwards: Yeah, that is cool…
All right…
Well, everybody has a wonderful day, and we will talk to you soon…
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