August 31, 2026

What if I don’t know where my target market hangs out?

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Last week, I asked everyone who read my positioning book to send in follow-up questions so I can tackle them in an expanded second edition.

Several people sent in a version of this one:

What if I don’t know where my target market hangs out?

My first thought:

If there is a market that you can serve that you already have direct access to, I would consider that instead.

Business is hard enough... not knowing how to reach your target market is just going to make a hard job even harder.

But okay, let’s say you want to try anyway.

Here are some tactics you can use to figure out how to get in front of a target market you’re unfamiliar with.

Ask everyone you know (friends, family, colleagues, EVERYONE) if they know anyone in TARGET MARKET. It’s shocking how small the world is when you get very specific. When you get some yeses (and I bet you will), ask for an introduction.
Make a list of conferences that TARGET MARKET attends every year. Spider their event sites to collect people’s names (e.g., organizers, advisors, speakers, attendees, sponsors, etc). Once you have a huge list of people, start introducing yourself to them.
Search for trade associations that TARGET MARKET might belong to. The quantity and variety of trade associations that exist in the world is truly mind-boggling. They almost always have some opportunities to put yourself in front of the membership. This often requires paying for a membership, but sometimes they have free opportunities for outside experts to do webinars, guest posts, etc.

HTH!

Yours,

—J