Are you seeing regular increases in income or customer base?

Do customers and clients come looking for you?

If you answered no to these questions -- if you are working overtime looking for new clients and customers -- you may have a stale or ineffective marketing funnel.

And this is something that you can easily fix.

The first step is to thoroughly know your target market. You cant build a magnetic marketing funnel without this information. I cant stress this concept enough. It is that critical to building a sustainable business.

Think about it, would you choose an outfit before knowing where you were going to wear it? Would you rent a car without knowing where you were going to drive it? Would you pack for a trip without know where you were going?

Of course not!

Then why would you develop a marketing plan without knowing who you were going to market to?

Everything in your marketing funnel must be relevant to your target markets wants, needs and problems. If you dont know who they are, there is no way you can know what they want, what they need or what problems they may have.

Let me be clear, you are building your marketing funnel -- your line of products and services -- to help solve the problems of your ideal clients or customers. You want to narrow your target market down as much as possible. It may sound counterintuitive, but the tighter you focus on your ideal target market, the easier it is to attract them and market to them.

When you market to broad, general categories of people, it is hard to develop a compelling message they will respond to. For example, you could market to cat lovers, but then you might miss your mark for Siamese cat lovers or Manx cat lovers. Another example would be targeting hard liquor drinkers. Are they all the same? No. Those who favor whiskey may not like vodka. Those who enjoy rum may not go near scotch.

So, you need to clearly define your target market and find out as much about them as you can. Here are some questions to help you get started:

* What is your target markets common thread? Is it age? Career choice? Industry? Gender? Hobby?

* Where does your target market live? Locally? Nationally? Globally?

* What types of publications does your target market read?

* What is your target markets typical salary range?

* Is your target market single? Married? Have children?

These are just a small sampling of the things you need to know. Basically, youre trying to get at what makes your target market tick so that you can develop messages that will resonate with them.