When I was in high school, the cafeteria was the place to find out who was in who’s clique. Seriously, you could walk into there at lunch time and immediately see a representation of every clique and who is in them just by who sits next to each other.
The most enthusiastic clique though? Those that played Magic: The Gathering, Pokemon and other similar card games.
Seriously, they were always gathered together and all paying attention to the same thing.
And they were congregating around one main common interest.
The cool part is? Every single one of you who went to a traditional high school can picture that same crowd right now.
Why? Because almost every high school throughout the US had similar cliques.
With similar kids sitting around together playing Magic.
Ok, but why does this matter to you?
Because the same freaking gather/congregating phenomenon happens with every interest you can think of.
There are discussion board forums and Facebook groups for every interest known to man.
Give me 20 minutes and a solid internet connection and I could find you groups for antique iron enthusiasts.
Trust me, they’re out there.
And if they are out there and congregating around an interest in YOUR niche, you can find them.
And you can target them. And sell to them.
Think about it.
If you had, in high school, created a Magic: The Gathering card carrier with carrying case, where would you sell it?
Sure, you could stand up in the middle of the cafeteria and shout about your offer until you are blue in the face, but it would get you nowhere.
Or, you could walk over to that group of friends currently playing, and specifically talking about Magic and boom, instant targeted audience who is interested in what you have to say.
The point of ad placement and marketing to your target audience is not to bombard everyone out there with your message.
It’s to find that one clique that will absolutely need, want, and use your specific niched down product.
Now, how do you actually go about finding these people?
Well, it’s not going to be as easy as walking around a high school cafeteria and looking for people freely talking about and using the products and services you’re offering.
But, it’s not going to be substantially harder than that either.
Nowadays, the cafeteria table is being replaced with Facebook pages and groups, chock full of people who are very interested and passionate about the same topic.
Suddenly, you’ve got tons of people to not only target, but to do some market research with!
Tons of these groups are filled with THOUSANDS of people who are passionate about discussing information around the goods and services that you are selling.
Can you imagine a better place to conduct market research? Because I sure can’t.
The even better part? Oftentimes, you don’t really have to find a bunch of people in these groups willing to take a call with you or anything in order to do some market research.
I’ve joined super active, passionate groups in my niche and scrolled through the feed using some key words and found some amazing information.