You’ve got a great product in hand, and you’ve crafted a marketing campaign that would make the best salesperson swoon. It seems perfect, but you’re not seeing the results that you thought were certain to come.

Marketing campaign craftsmanship doesn’t stand a chance if you’re not matching your sales message to your target audience.

Think about it this way: Your end-goal is to find buried treasure. So – you spend countless hours, energy, time, and even money crafting the most efficient and effective shovel around. After so much preparation, you’re ready to find your treasure.

But wait – where do you start digging?

Without spending time to narrow down your digsites, you’re essentially digging random holes with the best shovel in town – but with little chance of success.

The same goes with target audiences and sales messages. If you haven’t invested in finding your target audience and matching your message to that audience, it’s a crap shoot. You may hit your mark, but chances are that you won’t find the treasure trove you thought was sure to come.

Now, consider this: You know where the treasure is at, but you start digging with your shovel – to no avail. What went wrong?

In sales, you can liken your digging apparatus to your sales message and your digsite with your target audience. If your ‘treasure’ is 50 feet below ground, your puny shovel isn’t going to connect. You need to change the way you dig!

In sales, it all boils down to communication; How are you communicating with your target audience?

If we translate our example to sales, you’ll see what we’re talking about here. You’ve got the right product and the right audience; Now it’s all about connecting that product with your target audience via the appropriate sales message.

So – let’s ask the basic question.

Does your sales message match your actual target audience?

To answer the question, the first logical step is to find out what your target audience is all about. What are their likes, their values, their concerns? Without this information, you’re just guessing at what makes your target market tick.

The result? You’ll invest tons of time, energy, resources, and – perhaps most importantly – money in marketing your product but with little to show for it.

There are a few ways that you can change up your sales message to match your target audience. One of the biggest focusing factors is finding exactly what problems your target market has. So the steps here are to…

Step 1: Identify Problems for your Target Market

Everybody has a problem, even if it hasn’t been identified yet. Your goal is to either hone in on the spoken issues or reveal the issues they may not have realized are an issue yet. What are their gripes? What are their concerns? This can help mold your product to what it needs to be for your customer.

Step 2: Understand How These Problems Makes them Feel

Are your customers angry? Upset? Concerned? It’s one thing to identify a problem, but unless you know how they feel in response, you can’t accurately craft a sales message. For instance, sounding infuriated by an issue when your customers are actually just concerned can distance you from your audience. The connection is diminished, and you’re no longer operating on the same communication channel. Know how they feel, and empathize with it.

Step 3: Provide the Solution

Here’s where your product comes into play. You are the solution to the problem. Your sales message must reflect this idea — that your product is the answer. If you know the problem and know how they feel as a result, then you can seamlessly slip your sales message into the mix.

So now it’s down to this: What can we, as business owners and marketers, do to acquire this information quickly and efficiently?

In order to figure out what problems your target audience is experiencing, you’ll need to really get a grasp on the demographical features of that audience. When you know the demographical information of your target audience, you’re able to tailor your marketing message to meet their needs. And, as you can guess, this is the best way to fit your product in to meet their needs precisely.

Today’s market is extremely differentiated, and businesses that don’t take into account these demographical qualities will fail miserably with their sales message.

Many businesses get to this step and then go about acquiring demographics all wrong. For instance, stereotypical habits of certain categories aren’t the same as they used to be. Fashion preferences of today’s 20-something could closely mimic or even reflect those of an 80-year-old. And that’s just one simplified example.

A better demographics solution is finally here, and it’s part of your Premium features for PayKickstart.

We’ve found that by using private APIs and publicly-available data like social profiles, we can now provide businesses and marketers alike with a clear insight into the real personality of their target audience.

With this information, you can then reflect on your sales message and tweak it to fit the precise keyhole that your audience provides. Where does your product fit in, and how can you make it fit best? With Demographics, you’re able to adjust your key in order to match the lock better.

Let’s recap. Does your sales message match your target audience? There are a few ways to tell, but our favorite is with the help of Demographics through PayKickstart’s Premium features. With this information, you’re able to:

1. Identify your customer’s issues
2. Empathize with how they feel
3. Craft a message to specifically align your product as the solution

When your message is tailored to your target audience, your message is more intriguing, and your product becomes nearly irresistible.

You tell us: How do you go about crafting a sales message? Which demographics have you found to be the most useful?

Jared Schneider

Jared Schneider is CEO of PayKickstart and a serial entrepreneur. He is passionate about helping thousands of entrepreneurs and businesses grow through advice, automating payments and providing affiliate tools.

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