MODULE 1: MY TARGET MARKET

IDENTIFY YOUR
IDEAL CUSTOMER.
It's extremely important in your marketing to have a laser focus
on a narrow target market (often called a niche). Targeting a
niche allows you to become a big fish in a small pond, decrease
the cost of customer acquisition, and charge more for your
services. You can have more than one niche. First dominate one
niche, then move on to others.
 MODULE 1: MY TARGET MARKET

EXERCISE: 
IDENTIFYING YOUR
IDEAL CUSTOMER 
(USING THE PVP INDEX)
Out of a number of target markets your business may serve, a great way to choose your ideal
target market or niche is the PVP Index (Personal fulfilment, Value to the marketplace, and
Profitability), where you give each market segment you serve a rating, from 1-10, based on:  

P - Personal fulfilment: How much do you enjoy dealing with this type of customer?
Sometimes we work with pain-in-the-butt type customers just because of the money. In the
boxes on the next page, rate, on a scale of 1-10, how much you enjoy working with this
market segment.

V - Value to the marketplace: How much does this market segment value your work?
Example: Are they willing to pay you a lot of money for your work?

P - Profitability: How profitable is the work you do for this market segment? Sometimes even
when you are charging high fees for your work, when you look at the numbers it may be
barely profitable or even loss making. Remember it’s not about the turnover, it’s all about
the leftover.

To use a photographer as an example, his PVP Index may look like the following:

Weddings Photojournalism:
Personal fulfilment = 5 Personal fulfilment = 9
Value to the marketplace = 7 Value to the marketplace = 7
Profits = 9 Profits = 2
Total score: 21 Total score: 18

Corporate Photography: Family portraits:
Personal fulfilment = 3 Personal fulfilment = 9
Value to the marketplace = 6 Value to the marketplace = 8
Profits = 9 Profits = 9
Total score: 18 Total score: 26

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 MODULE 1: MY TARGET MARKET

The ideal customer for the photographer is people wanting family portraits. They are the
most fun, most profitable, highest value, and best paying types of customers. There’s likely to
be a standout market segment for you too.

TAKE A MOMENT TO THINK ABOUT AND WRITE OUT YOUR TOP FOUR TARGET MARKETS:

One:

Two:

Three:

Four:

NOW GIVE EACH MARKET SEGMENT A RATING OUT OF 1 - 10:

One: Two:
Personal fulfilment =  Personal fulfilment = 
Value to the marketplace =  Value to the marketplace = 
Profits =  Profits = 
Total score: Total score:

Three: Four:
Personal fulfilment =  Personal fulfilment = 
Value to the marketplace =  Value to the marketplace = 
Profits =  Profits = 
Total score: Total score:

Note: Having chosen an ideal target market doesn’t mean that you can’t take on work
outside this market, however, for now our marketing efforts will be directed at one ideal
market segment. We want to be laser focused. Once we dominate this market segment,
we can go on and add others. If we are too broad initially and target a laundry list of
market segments, then our marketing efforts will be ineffective.

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