How To Bring Your Target Market to Life

This month, I'd like to introduce you to one of my network who I have known since my business began.  Braith Bamkin, is the Executive Director of BNI Melbourne Central, West and Geelong, who also desribes himself as   "The Target Market Guy". 

We both belonged to a Brighton BNI Chapter. when we connected.  I was operating YTM in a slightly different capacity, helping busy  professionals and organisations  find the solution they needed to make their personal and business life easier (actually, I still do that but from a different base!) and Braith was a housing marketing manager for a mattress business.

I learnt alot during that time about how to network, and also, how to take on leadership roles. I was education coordinator,  visitor host, and President. Several of the  current YTM Members were in our Chapter and have become over the years, suppliers, clients, referrers and friends, that I made during  that time.

Obviously Braith and I are total converts to networking.  I think I have been networking since I was a child, but that's another story.

Braith started networking early in his  business career, and learnt that you had to build relationships with your clients, for them to want to do business with you.  Braith learnt that "Building relationships was more than just turning up, and shaking hands, but really understanding those people, and building a deep relationship, and offering to help them."

If you  help your network, you  make  their life  easier, they want a relationship with you. That is  what networking is about, trying to make other people's lives easy, and you never know when you're going to be able to reconnect and help. I remind you,  never underestimate who you are talking too!

Little did I know in 2010, that Braith would be a speaker at a YTM  event  and helping me to support other business professionals. 

So Braith how did you  get into Marketing?

 I actually started my career in sales, and I was working in the commercial textile world. I decided there was only so many meters of fabric you could sell in your lifetime, and I decided to go off, and change direction, and become a marketer, because I was very interested in the way that businesses marketed themselves. I went and did a master's in marketing, which was fabulous.

 I ended up getting a job in telco, in marketing. I worked in that industry for a number of years, and took brands for Telstra, and for free, to the marketplace, through channel management, and I loved .

 How are networking and marketing related?                                            

 I think most business people know they need to do some form of networking, and networking really is a different way of marketing. So marketing has many, many different parts to it, but one to one networking really is a very powerful way of generating quality business for yourself. Like any other marketing tool, you need to get really good at networking, if you're going to get a result from it.

 What are some of your observations  you have made through your involvement ith BNI?                                      

Alot of members were joining, and it became very clear to me that many people didn't know who they wanted to do business with, who they actually wanted to connect with, and I realized that if you don't know who you want to connect with, networking doesn't really have the same level of impact. Because you can't teach me who you want as a client, I can't find you that kind of client through our networking.

So it's an essential part of quality networking, to know your target market. 

it's probably part of the BNI training, that I had that now when people enrolto attend a YTM event,  I actually ask who would be their three ideal connections. and then I actually "match make" them. They might want to meet a civil engineer, and I might not have civil engineer in the room, but I will look and see who are good connections, or work in the same sort of field, so that they can have relevant  conversation .

I believe very strongly,  about getting your message out, clearly, to someone else, so they can look for connections for you, or might be the next door neighbor or the client of your perfect connection. So, being clear on who you want to talk to, and the opportunities that you're looking for, is a key part of YTM, as well and why I provide lead coaching. 

At YTM,  education is very important. What are a couple of things that  you would recommend to those  people  who say, "Oh, I know my target market. I know who I'm looking for"

A lot of people may know, at a higher level, that they need to clearly define their target market, but when it actually comes to doing it, a lot of people get really stuck. They kind of go, "Oh, yeah, I know who I want to do. My product serves everybody." 

To get marketing right, what do business owners need to consider?

A couple of components that need consideration are

•  demographics. That's the way you live what you do, the do stuff.
• and, psychographics, which are the things that people believe and feel, that are the emotional drivers to make them connect, and make a sale, because marketing is everything you do, up to the point where you get them in the front door, and that's where sales takes over.

If you would like to learn more about our approach to networking and marketing you will enjoy our conversation in the video below. I am also sure  we'll have a bit of fun with client avatars, when we're together on 27th  February in Brighton . So if you would like to learn more about your avatar, and get involved in a networking event like no other, please BOOK TODAY.  Braith and I look forward to connecting with you all.