What great poems! Anyone
would enjoy getting such a personable gift.
Try role playing: It is Wednesday, my wife's birthday is
Saturday and I need a gift. Where would I look first? Some
husbands would ask their secretaries and some would start
searching themselves. Do you see where this is leading? When you
select a large, general target audience consisting of women and
of men, you would have to go to great lengths to market to both
genders. As is, it would be essential to be seen in
predominantly male mediums and predominantly female mediums.
When you define a target audience, I recommend that you
narrow it down a bit. Baby boomers is a good start but, as you
said, you cannot figure out where to go with that. I would
decide the "what and why" baby boomers would want to
purchase your product and then decide "where" they
would go to do so.
Let's try a different approach. Look at your sales records
and see if you can determine a more narrow focus of your
audience. Are they mostly men who purchase your poems? Are they
mostly women? Do you know their ages? Without knowing anything
about your sales, I would venture to say that husbands buy wives
poems and females buy them for other females (on the average).
Use that information you have from the past year to figure out
where you need to market in the future.
Start your marketing in men's mediums if that is where most
of your sales have come from. I always recommend to start
advertising for an internet business in eNewsletters/eZines.
Most publishers of these can tell you what the percentage of
their audience is (and a whole lot more demographic
information). Then, play on your baby boomer target audience by
gearing your advertisement towards them. There are numerous
sites that offer very affordable advertising in this medium.
Internet marketing experts have said that if you market TO
your target audience, others will come. Be focused on exactly
who purchases your product and if all of the other factors of a
great business are met (i.e. quality product, affordable prices,
great customer service) then others will follow!
Tammy Harrison
is a successful home-based working mom for over five years.
She holds a degree from Mizzou in Consumer Economics. Her
business focuses on Marketing
as well as numerous other small businesses. For more
information, you may contact her at