72. Baking it Down - Targeting your Target Audience

🎯 What are Target Audiences?If you thought this newsletter was about the Dollar Section at Target, you're probably not alone *trembles in plastic apple containers* - but much like beloved Target, we need to target our audience. And unlike Target, we can't appeal to everybody.🤔 "Heather, you're off here. Listen - if I appeal to everyone = more people will buy from me. I ain't no Einstein, but the more people I reach, the more sales I can make."You're not wrong - in theory. The more people who do know about you, yes, can order from you. But what you can't see is how many people who know about you still don't order from you because your brand messaging is fuzzy.🤔  "Fuzzy? What mean you?" Let's say I wanted to start a group to talk about marketing and selling sugar cookies. But - sugar cookies. That's so limiting! Let's instead create a group that talks about selling all baked goods. 😬 Yeah, that'll get us access to a much larger audience! But just baked goods? 😬 What about hot sauce people and kombucha bros?! Okay - you're right. Let's create a group that features tips to sell things you create under cottage laws. Wonderful idea! Hold up - why limit ourselves to cottage laws? Maybe throw in brick-and-mortar bakeries, bottling companies, and breweries too. 😬  Good idea. Storefront audiences - they're pining for tips to make more sales to cover leases.Waaaaidaminute. You know what - the same concepts we use to sell edible goods, we could actually use to sell candles and other products as well. 😬 Awesome - let's call the group, "Selling Things You Make (Group)," wide open to a huge target audience who will love to learn from us.But what about importers and resellers? 😬 There's a huge market for those people too - and if we add them to our audience - well, heck! The Cookie College will be bursting with new signups! But we won't be able to call it The Cookie College anymore, huh? We'll call it "How to Sell Absolutely Anything Ever!" My point is a bit long in the tooth, but it can be summarized in this quote:"When your messaging speaks to everyone, it speaks to no one."🎯 Okay - I see your point. So who is my target audience?Think of your target audience as a really tight-knit group of people. We want to keep our targets small - the smaller the better. A great way to start off determining who your current target is is by taking an average of who purchased from you in the past 1 year. Think narrow thoughts - speak almost about a single individual. What's that person's age? Male or female? Kids or child-free? Empty nesters or elementary school? Dinks or single-income? Home schooled or public schooled? Be specific. 🎯 Okay - I've got the person narrowed down. Now what?Now begin crafting your messaging to speak to that person. If that person has kids, talk to people with kids. "But what if some people don't have kids." They're not your target - remember, you just came up with your target person in the step above. "But won't they feel left out?" No - they'll find someone whose targeting they fall into. You need to focus on people who fall within your target audience.🎯  Hey - what's the worst that could happen? 🎯 Odds are if you haven't determined your brand voice, your messaging is already pretty generic and slightly fuzzy. The worst that could happen? You find a true tribe of customers who are more loyal to you than Corrie to a Target parking lot. Go forth. Find your target. And laser focus on what they want, like, and hate. Then speak to them about those topics. You're going to find that customers can connect with you on a deeper level (and end up reaching deeper into their pockets).

Om Podcasten

👋 Hey - Heather and Corrie here with the Baking it Down Podcast with Sugar Cookie Marketing (a group on Facebook full of sugar cookiers turned business owners). 🍪 We're here to help you rise with your reach, flood with new followers, bake up new ideas, and make that all-important dough (while makin' that dough - see the pun there?) 🤑. What’s it about? We’re a Facebook Group turned Podcast, Membership, Book Club, and Baking 101 that’s dedicated to assisting bakers in effectively marketing online to generate more sales and better manage their businesses. 🧠 With free Facebook Live classes, hundreds of resources, and thousands of like-minded bakers, there’s a lot to learn in "SCM" (aka Sugar Cookie Marketing). ️🎧 As an extension of our Facebook group, this podcast is here to let you learn by listening. 📈 We'll cover group topics, marketing trends, and more (leaving this wide open in case Corrie wants to start singing). 💸 We take the sweet art of selling online to the cottage bakery world with marketing methods that move products (and pastries).👂 So open up those glorious ear canals because we have a podcast! Just when you’ve thought you’ve “heard” it all with those marketing "miracle" twins (that's our last name - not a proclamation), we’ve got something just for you each week! 🥣 As a baker, you don't always have the luxury of two hands needed to scroll in Sugar Cookie Marketing Group or crack open a book in Sugar Cookie Bookies, but what you can do is listen (unless you're my kid asking “what’s for dinner” for the millionth time). 👐 Hands full of flour? No problem! 👍 18 dozen iced cookies due tomorrow? Let’s do this. The Baking it Down Podcast by Sugar Cookie Marketing is a weekly podcast geared toward helping you grow your bakery business - dropping (almost) every Tuesday. 📅 We choose a topic each week that's either something new and emerging in the world of social media or something that we saw in "The Group" that was a hot topic and we bake it down... I mean, "break" it down for you. 🗯️ What you can expect in the podcast is about an hour of chit-chat with the meat and potatoes right at the beginning of the episode. 🥔 That’s when we dive into the marketing topic of the week! 📞 Oh yeah, folks can call / text / email in with their questions too - a fun way to hear from other bakers out there. Our promises to you: 1️⃣ We always make it clean = no cursing. We understand that you are busy and could be around little ones while also trying to get your weekly dose of business growth so we make sure that each episode would make our grandma proud and keep it clean so you can listen while also living your life. 2️⃣ We always make it fun. There’s a lot of negativity in the world so we try and make the podcast an upbeat and fun learning experience for you. I mean, we try to make the Instagram updates and changes as happy as we can, but come on Instagram! Give it a rest! No more changes! 3️⃣ Other than that, we take a positive approach to marketing We are also *not* professional podcasters. I feel like we need to say this because, hey, sometimes we get giggles! We do our best to extend our marketing knowledge to you all free of charge each week at the cost of listening to our higher-than-normal pitched voices and the occasional giggle spree. 4️⃣ You can find the podcast on all the major platforms and you can typically expect a new episode each Tuesday afternoon (unless life happens). We invite everyone to listen. Either start from the beginning or work backward! The episodes don’t build off themselves so you won’t be confused hearing one before the other. You just might miss new Lives we mention but you can always catch the replay in the Sugar Cookie Marketing Group on Facebook!