Your book audience: why less is more
I had a great strategy session today with a client who wasn’t sure how to target her forthcoming business book. There were two audiences she could have focused on: one was a general ‘small business’ audience, and the other a much more niche readership. She felt that there were pros and cons to both options, and luckily I was easily able to persuade her to go for the niche group. In fact she’d instinctively chosen that one all along, it was just nice for her to have her instincts confirmed.
So why is niche so much better than ‘general’? Just imagine two imaginary books:
- Public speaking for small business owners
- Public speaking for marketing agencies
If you’re a small business owner then yes, you might be attracted to option 1. But let’s face it, there are probably a slew of other books on Amazon all targeting the same audience, and it doesn’t exactly leap out at you as being anything special.
However, if you’re a marketing agency owner, think how fascinated you would be by option 2! This book is speaking to you and will contain advice, information and tips which will be directly relevant to your business. Sure, some of the content might be similar to that contained in option 1, but in option 2 it’s tailored to your exact needs.
The book might contain advice on how to use your visual creative skills to dream up fabulous presentation slides, or on what types of audiences to pitch for, what pitfalls to avoid, and what kind of specific content to talk about in order to win over your crowd. Think how incredibly helpful that would be for a marketing agency to know.
Going back to my budding author, luckily she recognised at the start that she needed to figure out her exact audience before she began structuring and writing her book. How maddening would it have been to get to chapter 3 before she realised that she was aiming at the wrong target – aaargh! So much time wasted. How demotivating would it have been to go back to square one after all that effort? She may even have been tempted to carry on regardless (cue sharp intake of breath), or … give up (cue throwing up of hands in horror)!
In the event, she’s going to write a book which will appeal directly to her chosen niche, and which will therefore be more successful within that niche than if she had written it for a general audience. I can’t wait to see it when it’s finished; and there’s nothing stopping her from addressing other audiences in the future.
Have you ever started writing or creating something and then realised that it was aimed at the wrong crowd? What did you do? Let me know in the comments below.
And if you’d like a strategy session to make sure you’re on the right track with your own book, I offer a limited number of free ones each month. You can click here to apply – I’d love to hear your plans.
