Make Money Online With a Zen-Cart Online Store - 3 Reasons to Be Specific About Your Target Market

Your target market is the group of people to whom you "target" your sales effort. Many online store owners allow themselves to be tempted with the idea that narrowing your scope is like leaving money on the table because "everybody" could use a widget. Smart store owners recognize that though everybody "could", they won't; and you can't appeal to them all anyway, so carving out a niche and then filling the needs of the people in that niche is the way to go.

Define your target market, or niche, using demographics as well as lifestyle information and psychographics. It can even make a difference if your market is local, regional, national or international, as local customs and beliefs can impact strategy and product presentation.
Really savvy store owners will even develop a persona (or even two or three personas) to describe a category of client. Doing so then allows them to "think like the client" when selecting products to sell, writing product descriptions, and showing images of the product - especially when the image demonstrates the product in use.

There are a myriad of decisions related to setting up your zen-cart online store that should be made with regard to your niche. These include things like colors, layout, use of terminology, etc. to name a few.

With this in mind, you won't want to stop at just identifying a broad market (example: men who like to play golf or women with children). Instead, be more descriptive and further define your niche within the broad market. When you are specific about your niche, you can:

Identify benefits that are sought by your niche and then select products to sell that address their specific needs and desires;
Write copy that is designed to appeal to your niche;
Offer payment options that work best for your niche.
Here's a very short example: suppose you want to sell golf lessons. Would you plan the content of the lessons and set-up the sales copy the same for a 17-year old novice player as you would for an adult experienced player who vacations at golf resorts every year? Would you try to cross-sell the same items to these two people?   Read Full Story