How to target your ideal customer through the media

Getting into the media is really about fulfilling just four goals:

• to build your visibility (so it makes it easier for people to find you)

• to build your authority (so that it makes it easier for people to trust you)

• to generate more opportunities (such as book deals, speaking gigs and partnerships)

• to make more money (research has proven that adding trust factors like ‘As seen in’ remains one of the most effective ways to close sales).

With this being the case, you want to make sure that any media features you do get are hitting at least one of these, which means getting savvy and targeting your ideal customer through any media features you do - because if you’re not doing that, there’s not much point in making the effort.

So today I’ll be going through an easy step-by-step guide to making sure any media features you get are actually doing the work you want them to.

Bring to mind your ideal customer 

Yep, it’s time to dust off that old ‘target customer’ avatar. It might seem like a really obvious one but you want to start by reminding yourself who they are, what their values are, what they do for work, and what they do in their spare time. The reason you want to do this is because…

Then you can figure out what kind of content they're going to read 

Again, this might seem obvious, but this is where you can get really savvy. In my experience, a lot of people make the mistake of only targeting the types of media that directly relate to what they do: for example, the business coach only targets business titles like Forbes; the makeup brand owner only targets media brands that have a bangin’ beauty section.

But, as Julia Roberts so famously said in Pretty Woman, this is a ‘big mistake. HUGE.’

To make it easier for yourself to land media features (and remember - the more you have, the more you get. Sadly, it’s one of life’s cruel viscous circles) why not first try targeting an area that’s less crowded with experts like you?

The way to do this? Think about what other sorts of stories or things your target audience might be interested in. For example, if you’re that business coach, why not target parenting magazines (if your target customer is likely to also be a parent) or the lifestyle section of weekend newspapers?

The trick is to think like your customer so that you can target them even when they’re not in work -mode.

Why?

Well, I’m glad you asked. Because this means:

• you have more opportunities and avenues through which to reach them

• you catch them off guard (which is great when you’re delivering something highly valuable).

Make sure your one- sentence elevator pitch is ready

When you do get the opportunity to be featured in an article, make sure your one line explainer is ready and that the journalist has it. When they introduce you in the piece, they’re going to explain who you are and what you do so if you already have a slick explainer ready, they’re likely to use that. That way, even if you have been quoted in a magazine that’s not strictly related to your field, your potential customers will read it and know exactly what problems you solve.

And that, my friend, is how the cookie crumbles.H