Before the great pandemic, I was invited to coach a LIVE and LIVELY class of creative entrepreneurs at the Woman’s Business Development Council, known as the WBDC, in Stamford, CT.
The staff and students in that class were awesome, passionate, and inspirational. They were starting businesses that featured products and services such as grandma’s bone broth, vegan dog biscuits, office space for entrepreneurs, bridal gown detailing, custom nutrition for athletes, etc. They were all eagerly looking for information about how to design a website that actually worked for their business.
My story today is about one of those students, a seriously creative entrepreneur named Lauren, who creates stunning pieces out of wood (see the photos above). After building her own website with a template builder, she sent me the link to get my opinion.
My two cent reply
“Hi Lauren, I looked over your website pretty carefully. It’s neat and clean, well organized, but really does not do your work justice, in my opinion. I think an overall emphasis is missing and it feels a bit flat. Having said that, I hope you are getting sales like crazy and I am completely wrong.”
Lauren’s reply to my critique
“Catherine, thank you! My website really is just so terribly boring, no personality and I am much more than that! I have so many fun ideas but can’t seem to make any of it come true via the templates, but I am going to try again. “
Lauren’s frustration reflected my own experience with certain build-it-yourself websites. They are fun and easy at first, but you can only go so far before the templates limit what can be done creatively.
But, it was the second part of Lauren’s reply that really got my attention. She wrote…
“I need to figure out, actually… what am I selling? Wood art or art/function, lifestyle, home decor, wall decor, jewelry organization, jewelry showcasing, one of a kinds, gifts… ?? I have a lot of work to do on all of this.”
My reply to Lauren’s dilemma
“Hi Lauren,
This is such a good question! I think the way to think about this is not to ask what you are selling — but more about who you are selling to. One way to find out who you are selling to is by creating several landing pages focused on different audiences (target markets) to find out.
For example: If you create a page that focuses on displaying jewelry, someone who is searching for information about displaying jewelry might type in the words How can I display my jewelry? That person might see your listing in Google because your landing page has the keywords that the visitor typed in.”
The cool thing about these niche landing pages is that you can create as many as you need. In Lauren’s case she can build at least seven pages. One each for wood art, lifestyle, home decor, wall decor, jewelry organization, jewelry showcasing, one-of-a-kind gifts….
For each special interest that she can think of, there are people out there who will want what she sells for exactly that reason. Once she has named the interests, she can build a specific landing page for each of those groups of people, speaking to them in a way they understand and telling them exactly what they want to know. She needs to stay relevant and specific to each kind of audience.
Then, she can share those pages on social media, through online advertising, and by sending emails. Plus, pretty soon, she may even get some visitors organically from search engines too.
Delving into her analytics to see which pages are doing best she can now learn who she is selling to!
How to target an audience for your own business
Okay. Building great landing pages is not that easy. No matter what you are offering, in order to find out who you are selling to and what they are searching for is going to take a bunch of time, and some serious marketing chops. But, figuring out how to position your business is one of the best skills an entrepreneur can have.
So, if you have the grit and technical ability that Lauren has, building some niche landing pages on your website is a great way to figure out who you want to be as a business.
Don’t have the time or desire to do all this yourself? Keep doing what you love and contact Chroma Sites for the rest.
If you are interested in seeing or purchasing Lauren Mollica’s work, go to her website here: https://laurenmollica.com/
