You have an idea for a new service or product (I am going to refer to it as a product for simplicity’s sake). god forbid you’ve already built the service or product. You think it is a great idea and you don’t know of anybody doing it or doing it as well as you plan. Now, sit down and take the time to think through the buying process.
First thing is who do you expect to buy your product? Don’t say everybody. You need to articulate very, very clearly who you are going after and who will be attracted to your product. Try to delineate the target by easily measurable criteria as it will be easier to find data to quantify the size of the market and it will be easier to target your advertising and promotion later on.
Let’s use a hypothetical example. Let’s say you have an idea for an internet service that provides “human spam filtering” for email. You plan to combine automated spam filtering with a human back up and radically improve the user experience. Since virtually everyone uses email and has some kind of spam filter, you believe everyone is your target. Think again.
To narrow the target, consider what unique benefits you are bringing and what segment is likely to benefit the most from it. In this case, while everyone might benefit some, it might be the well-paid middle to upper level manager in a business setting that might benefit the most. A flood of junk mail in the inbox might mean a missed email that is critical while an incorrectly spammed email might result in similar consequences. The criticality of missed opportunity among lower paid workers or consumers may be too low to drive demand in these groups.
Notice that this exercise results in a better definition of the value proposition and crystallizes the product requirements around the ideal customer.
Iterate this process several times. Identify several target customer segments if it makes sense. Refine the value proposition and the target definition. The more concrete you can be about this the better you will be able to move forward with confidence.
