It’s a book for women – what do you mean ALL women aren’t my audience?

For the next 12 days, we’ll be taking a little detour from the traditional marketing posts you’ve come to know and love on the Marcie Brock blog as I lead by example and follow my own writing prompts for the Author Blog Challenge.

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Day 17 writing prompt:

Describe the market for your book – to the tiniest detail (e.g., childless divorced women past age 50 who want to remarry). Why that demographic? How do you connect with them to market to them?

Knowing your market is truly the key to selling books. Just as it’s difficult to market a business to “everybody who…” it also is difficult to sell books to a large, unidentified group of readers. Niching, or identifying a target audience, may at first seem counterintuitive, in that you’re scaling down and eliminating certain segments, but it’s necessary if you intend to reach the folks who will actually want to read your book. Once you know who your specific market is, you have a clue how to find them, how to connect with them, and how to build the relationships with them that will eventually allow you to sell books to them.

Sure, I might like to think all women would be potential readers for 1,001 Real-Life Questions for Women, but that’s simply not true. A bit deeper a look at the content of the book reveals a more specific audience. First, this audience is a group of women who are willing to do some self-exploration and who are seeking self-growth. This means they are more than likely college educated, and have done a bit of living. A 45-year-old woman is much more likely to want to take a self-inventory than a recent 22-year-old university graduate.

Initially, I considered my target market to be college-educated women, ages 25 to 55. However, I found out as I began sharing the book with women of various ages that older women really appreciate the questions, the format, and the entire approach – so I shifted that bracket to ages 30 to 70. That’s still a pretty wide niche, though, isn’t it?

Other specifics about my audience:

• They’ve had a wide range of experiences, or are curious about other women who have.
• They take comfort in the fact that their experiences – regardless of how seemingly peculiar – are much more universal than they may have realized.
• They love to gather with a group of girlfriends to compare notes and explore each others’ lives.
• They are active, so while they may not have the time to journal, they may be willing to take time to answer specific, topical questions.
• They are looking for an easy way to begin conversations with their partners about topics that might otherwise be difficult to broach.
• They are likely to seek – and use – resources that further their knowledge or exploration of particular topics of interest to them.

Reaching these women is an intriguing proposition because their personal interests are so broad. They are joiners, belonging to professional and community organizations. They are perhaps less likely to be traditionally religious, but they will probably have a spiritually supportive community. They will likely be online, seeking connections on all of the aforementioned topics, as well as furthering their own personal development.

A mixed approach of online and offline strategies is, no doubt, the best way to reach this audience. I am starting with social media (FB, Twitter, and a Ning group) and a blog, as well as approaching organizers of women’s groups. It’s been a while since I touched any of these (except for Twitter), but I’m getting more and more motivated to move my own marketing campaign to the top of my priority list!

Happy publishing!

Laura

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We welcome and encourage your thoughtful, courteous comments below.

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In honor of our 1-year anniversary (May 2, 2012), we’re hosting the Author Blog Challenge! It starts June 2 and is open to published authors, authors-in-progress, and would-be authors. Come check us out!

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