Seems simple enough, doesn't it?

But be careful, because this area can be extremely dangerous. Typically, the most danger occurs when you have a product that proverbially, "everyone needs." Trying to market to "everyone" can be extremely costly and almost always leads to failure. What you really need are carefully defined groups of customers who have specific hot buttons you can appeal to.

The tighter the definition of your market, the easier it is to market to them. For example, people who need the services of a tax professional could be very difficult to market to. There are a wide variety of services to offer and an even wider variety of needs these customers might have.

But if you narrow this group down to people who are having trouble dealing with the IRS, you now have a tightly defined target to aim at. Creating powerful selling copy aimed at this specific market segment is much easier than dealing with everyone who needs the services of a tax professional.

This point is a little more subtle. I've noticed a very interesting pattern with clients who come to me for consulting. When clients ask me to evaluate what's wrong with their marketing, they're very often surprised at my answer.

They expect me to dismantle their headline, or restructure their offer, or recommend a stronger close, and so on. A good number of them are completely shocked when I tell them they've missed the mark in defining their market. Quite simply, what's really holding them back is that they're trying to sell to the wrong people.

This error takes two forms. The first is trying to sell to people who simply can't afford your product. The logic that blinds so many people goes like this: "people need my widget so much that they'll dig down and buy it even if they can't afford it". Sorry, but that rarely happens. And then you're stuck with a warehouse full of widgets you can't sell.

The second variation is selecting a cash-poor market as your target and then adjusting your prices down to try to sell to this market. This is another crucial error. You simply can't make solid profits by selling low cost products to buyers who lack the financial resources to pay a fair price. I've seen clients choose starving actors, start-up businesses, "mom and pop" type businesses, college students, and worse as their target market. This is pure financial suicide. What you really want is a market that has a true need and is willing and able to pay to satisfy that need.

This is another critical characteristic a lot of marketers overlook.

Often, a prospect who looks like a strong potential customer really isn't a customer at all. This frequently occurs when an employee of a company is assigned to evaluate a product - or responds to your ad, mailing, email, or web page without the knowledge of their boss. The employee may have a burning desire to buy your product. But their employer doesn't share their interest and won't authorize the purchase. So, you're out a sale.

When I first started marketing my book Small Business/Big Profits, I tested an offer to a list consisting of business owners and marketing managers. I predicted that the marketing managers would be the strongest buying group since the course could make them much more effective in their jobs.

Was I ever wrong! Not one marketing manager bought the course.

Every purchaser turned out to be the owner of the company. When I did my follow-up research, I was able to talk to a number of marketing managers who didn't buy. A high percentage of them told me they really wanted to buy the course, but couldn't get their company to authorize payment. And, as I've found to be a consistent pattern, very few employees will dig into their own wallets and pay for something they feel their employer should pay for. Like it or not, that's the way things go.

So remember, you always want to reach the prospect who has the authority to make the purchasing decision. Without that person, there is no sale.

Your profits depend on your ability to correctly identify a large group of customers who want, can afford, and have the authority to purchase your products. And the best way to do that is to create a profile of exactly what that group would look like.

Let's take a look at how you use these three characteristics to create an actual Ideal Customer Profile that will drive your advertising copy. For our example, we'll say you're in the business of selling videos that teach people how to use personal computers. Who would be most likely to buy your products?

Obviously, computer owners would be potential candidates, but that's too broad a definition. For one thing, your strongest audience would be people using computers at home rather than at work. This would eliminate the more advanced users you'd reach by advertising in mainstream computer magazines.

However, there are a lot of smaller magazines, e-zines, and web sites that cater to home computer users. These would be a good start for profiling your ideal customer groups. If you went to the newsstand and bought a few of these magazines and looked at both the articles and advertising, you'd start to see consistent patterns.

For example, there would be regular features on games for kids, education for kids, managing household budgets, managing investments, and other topics. You might also find these same themes repeated in the ads that run in these magazines.

Whichever themes showed up the most, issue after issue, would point you in the direction of your hottest prospects. Assuming that the characteristics I've just described are accurate, let's start drawing your Ideal Customer Profile. Your ideal customer would look something like this:

• Owns their own computer and uses it at home.


• Has family with children.


• Earns middle to upper income.


• Subscribes to one or more magazines for home computer users.


• Has an Internet connection and uses it for business and personal tasks.


• Has bought other computer-related products through the marketing method you use to sell your products.

That's a quick exercise in creating your Ideal Customer Profile. You should now be able to create one of your own - one that you can take all the way to the bank!