Hey there – and welcome to episode 114 of the Small Business Made Simple Podcast.

Thanks for leading me your ears today – I know you have lots of choices out there and I appreciate you making me one of them.

I’m Jenn, the host, marketing thought leader and digital strategist and coach for small businesses.  And just an all round small business lover with one goal in business – to make every small business I come across to make marketing a priority in their business – because if you want to grow, you need to market!

It’s that’s simple – not easy, but simple for sure.

Before we get into this week’s episode, I just wanted to quickly let you know that I have a second podcast – just launched this week!

Yep, if you can’t get enough of my dulcet tones, there’s another one you can listen too!

It’s called Stories from the Bush and are interviews of amazing rural business owners from my other business Spend With Us – Buy From a Bush Business.

If you’re not familiar with Spend With Us – Buy from a Bush Business, it’s my *ahem* side hustle and Australia’s premier online marketing place for rural and regional Australia – like Amazon but for rural businesses and attached to that is also a Facebook Group with over 310,000 members.

Anyway, my podcast is telling some of their stories. 10 of them in fact – all launched as one season – listen to one or them all!

You can find Stories from the Bush in all the podcast apps or go to www.spendwithus.com.au and click on the podcast button.

Some of the stories are mind-blowingly amazing.  If you love a good Aussie story – you’ll love that podcast for sure. 

Ok, so back to this podcast.  This episode came about from a casual question in my Facebook Group Like Minded Business Owners (go join that if you haven’t already) when someone mentioned Tik Tok.

I think that question was do you use Tik Tok in your business and the response was “oh no – not another thing I need to be doing”.

Which was a valid point right.  We are ALL busy enough – do we need another thing?

It’s like Clubhouse – I’m absolutely loving it – but does that mean you should be on it and loving it too?

So, I thought we could have a little discussion about where your energy should be going and, of course, bright shiny object syndrome.

There’s a LOT of platforms you COULD be on – but which ones should you be on?

The short answer is – where your audience is!  Makes logically sense.

We aren’t on social media or sending emails or making podcasts for fun (or not really), we are using them as tools to attract an audience, to nurture an audience until they are ready to buy and then we are using it to get them to buy again and tell their friends about you and your products or services.

So, if you want more sales, you need to get in front of more potential buyers.

Simple – right!

I think so (noting the different between simple and easy! This podcast is not called Small Business Made Easy for a reason!)

So, it comes back to knowing who your ideal client is – your ideal audience, your avatar – whatever you want to call them.

So, how’s your target audience, the audience that is most likely to buy your stuff and where do they hang out.

Get these two questions right and no matter how many times someone talks about Tik Tok or Clubhouse or LinkedIn or Twitter or whatever, you know you do or don’t need to be on those platforms, because you know where you audience is living.

No matter how great someone else is doing on a platform you’re not on – that’s ok, because you are where you need to be to get the sales you need to stay in business.

So clearly knowing your target audience is a marketing fundamental you MUST get right.  And, I might add, look at every now and then – because those little target audience folks change – humans change their minds and also like bright shiny objects!

But it’s more complicated than that these days.  Let’s take Instagram for instance.

Let’s say that your target audience IS on Instagram – you’ve done the work – you’re sure that’s where your cashed up people to nurture as hanging out, so you go all in on Instagram.

But then you’re like, do I do posts on my grid, IGTV, Stories, Reels – and the head starts to pound again!

Again, you need to know your target audience.

Just knowing demographics like age, sex, location, marriage status, children, income – it’s just not enough these days.

You will need dig deeper, way deeper, into questions like

• What keeps them up at night?
• Are they more likely to use google or social media for searching?
• Do they read magazines or listen to podcasts?
• What are their non-negotiables?
• How do they enjoy learning?
• What’s their biggest challenge you are solving?
• Who do they follow?
• Who are their mentors and heroes?
• How do they like to communicate – phone, text, DMs, emails?

And so much more.

How do you find this stuff out – well you need to do your research – ask questions, put on your  marketing hat and get on social media and watch from a marketing perspective.

LISTEN – I mean actively listen to conversations that your ideal client might be having – what’s the common words or themes you hear?

Do you hear things like “I listen to a podcast the other day” or “I spent 2 hours watching Instagram reels” or “I’m having a social media break for a while” or even “I read the most interesting blog”?

People say stuff like this to us all the time, but it’s whether we have our marketing hat on that we listen and think “that’s my ideal client saying that, and I’ve heard this 4 times already this week”.

Of course, you can always survey your audience or give 20 or so people in your ideal client demographics a call and actually ask them specific questions!

So, my point, my long point is you don’t have to be everywhere, and you don’t have to be doing everything.

You just need to be where your buyers are.

This might take time to work out – marketing is all about test and measure – failure is learning remember, so experiment.

And of course, watch your insights, your google analytics and track your sales.

Where did your last 20 sales come from?  Can you trace them from lead to list to sale to fan?

If not, why not?

This the stuff you need to track.  That way you can see, in black and white, where you need to be spending your time, because you can see that your sales or your leads that turn into sales come from Instagram or your podcast or wherever.

If you want to do some work on your ideal client – here’s some resources for you:

• A workbook I have that actually connected to my Facebook Ads for Beginners course, you can work through by going to: http://bit.ly/ICAJenn – that’s a bit of a bonus for you, and
• Go listen to episode 25 – socialmediaandmarketing.com.au/25 – Get to Know Your Ideal Client

I hope this has helped.  Next time you see me talking about Tik Tok or Clubhouse or someone else saying they have had 100 sales from Instagram Reels and you think “wow – maybe I should be doing that too” – come back and listen to this episode or do the work on your ideal client, do it often (it’s not a set and forget thing), do the test and measuring of your marketing, watch your numbers and figures and where your leads come from and have confidence in knowing your ideal client and your business model, so you can say well done to them and not get distracted on your own path.

I’m all about chasing down things, experimenting and finding your groove, so don’t be afraid to venture, but do it wisely, with those words I love to hate “for what purpose”.

Knowing your ideal client back to front is the key to your success and to you using your time wisely, so invest in the process.  Do the work.

But that’s it for episode 114 – I’ll be back for 115 next Thursday – look forward to chatting again then.

Have a fabulous week, whoever or whatever it brings.

If you’re enjoying this podcast, which if you have listened to here – you hopefully are, don’t forget to subscribe, share this episode with another superstar business owner who’s doing the daily grind and would appreciate someone making their business simpler, and leave a rating or review to show how much you are loving this free weekly content and my fabulous guests!

See you next week

But whatever you do,

……..remember small business peeps, as my opening song says, there’s no point in dreaming small!