Let me guess...

You're throwing marketing spaghetti at the wall hoping something sticks, right?

Running ads to "everyone aged 25-65 who likes business." Wondering why your brilliant product isn't flying off the virtual shelves.

Here's the brutal truth: Most business owners treat finding their target audience like ordering takeaways — they want it fast, cheap, and delivered to their door.

But the riches are in the niches, and the fortune is in knowing exactly who you're talking to.

Not sort of. Not roughly. EXACTLY.

Most entrepreneurs approach target audiences like they're planning a braai for the entire neighborhood — trying to please everyone and ending up satisfying no one.

They create generic messages like "We help businesses grow" or "Quality products at affordable prices."

About as exciting as watching paint dry in a Karoo drought.

Here's what really happens when you try to target everyone:
• Your message becomes weaker than rooibos tea
• You compete on price because you can't differentiate
• Your marketing budget gets stretched thinner than biltong at a rugby final
• You attract tire-kickers instead of serious buyers

The solution of course is to get laser-focused on who you serve, what they desperately want, and how they want to be talked to.

Forget demographic boxes and statistical averages. You have to go deeper than that. The problem most people make is they want to rush through this to get to the selling part... They want to do the fun stuff like building funnels, creating ads, and make some money. They end up spending 5 minutes on this foundational work, taking some generic data that's mostly pulled out of their arse*... And then they wonder why their whole marketing is a flop...

Most people never go past the "Surface Level" :
• Age, income, location
• Job title and industry
• Basic pain points

But if you want to be a magnetic marketer where customers start running to you with credit cards in hand, then you need to speak their language. you have to know their darkest secrets, desires hopes and dreams:
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Stuff like:
• What keeps them awake at 2 AM staring at the ceiling
• The specific words they use when complaining to their spouse
• What they've already tried (and why it failed)
• Their biggest fear about making the wrong decision
• What success looks like in their wildest dreams

As scary as it sounds... The goal of your marketing must be to chase away everyone you don't want to do business with (the majority), while at the same time speak so directly to your ideal dream customers that when they see your stuff, they feel like you talk to them personally - Like every word is meant for exactly them.

Now lets look at Personalization
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Most businesses think personalization means adding someone's name to an email. Or even worse, making it super personal to yourself.

That's like thinking a braai is just throwing meat on a fire.

Real personalization means you are creating messages that feel like you're reading their diary. Speaking their language, using their terms and the actual words they use, instead of some corporate jargon crap. The easiest "trick" to help you with this is to make it all about them. In truth, they don't care one bit about you, but if you make it all about them and match the dialogue they already have going on in their own head, they'll buy everything you have to offer...

Here's a quick example:
• Generic: "Our software helps increase business efficiency."
• Personalized: "Finally! A system that stops you from answering the same bloody questions 47 times a day so you can actually focus on making money instead of playing customer service hero."
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​The bottom line is to stop trying to market to everyone.

Find the 20% of customers that bring in the 80% of your revenue - AND STUDY THEM!

If you put in the time to really dial in your target audience, do the research, take surveys, talk to your customers and learn as much as humanly possible about them, hen your marketing will become easy, costs will drop and your profits will skyrocket...

Most businesses fail not because they have bad products or terrible service. They fail because they're having conversations with themselves instead of with their customers.

The winners obsess over understanding their customers' deepest desires, biggest fears, and exact words. They create solutions that feel custom-made.
Most importantly, they speak like humans, not corporate robots or Chat-GPT AI rubbish.

Be authentic

Speak to your ideal customer and they'll come running to you.

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