Week 4: Identifying my audience
Introduction
Last week you explored where to find support for your creative ventures and ideas. This week you’ll start to focus your attention on your own idea, product or service, considering who you plan to market it to and comparing it with your competitors. You’ll learn about target audiences and markets and how to identify them, and you’ll find out about the importance of benchmarking and research.
First watch this short video, where our creative freelancers discuss how they have found their customers.
Download this video clip.Video player: Video 1
Transcript: Video 1
JOHN SIMPSON:
I do think you have to know your industry and the people you will try to connect with.
REBECCA HARLING:
If you nurture and develop the connections that you have-- I do business networking-- you can grow and develop relationships, you meet people, and they can then connect you with other people.
GARIMA KHAWAN:
Well, I started with something called print-on-demand. These are sites which you put your artwork-- you put it on products, and people can find you. So most companies or people have found me through those. So I put my work out there probably on eight to 10, even more sites. So they're all over the world. And I think through that, people found me, or I got a lot of projects as well.
VANESSA COOPER:
Trying to pick a target market I found really quite hard. Most of the people that have found me or come on board is through social media. I found that's been the platform I think for most people these days which works best because you've got this instant access to lots of people. And when somebody else shares it, it's a whole pocket of other people.
REBECCA HARLING:
You do end up with this almost organic growth, but it's not organic by I'm just sat here-- the old field of dreams, 'if you build it, they will come'. You have to put a lot of work into building it. It doesn't just come to you.
MATT KATZ:
The structure of production companies has changed so much over the years, but the pool of people is still the same. And they just go to other Indies, and they remember who they worked with and will put your name forward and things.
ZAKIA RASHID:
As long as you keep that momentum-- that's a really key thing as a freelancer, is keep that momentum going. Don't slack off at any point because as soon as you do, you'll get into that sticky area where the work either dries up or you get a gap in your pipeline. And that's just not a comfortable place to be.
JESSICA ROWE:
So it's finding I guess location-wise where we were missing in the market and also within the market itself, what commissions are coming out.
GARIMA KHAWAN:
I think what I'm going to go do different now is now, I'm actually creating collections, that I'm going to pitch to companies that I want to work with consciously. But till now, it has just been one thing that's led to another. It's just happened.
MATT KATZ:
When we didn't have a reputation, then you may get a referral. But then it would be an invitation to pitch, and you'd be one of a set of six people who basically get to do the job for nothing, and then they choose who they pay.
JOHN SIMPSON:
I'm going to art fairs, and people are coming to me, which I really like.
MATT KATZ:
Whereas now when you go, we've done nine seasons of Horrible Histories, we've done 120 episodes of Teletubbies. Go and look at what we do, and then decide if you'd like to book us to do the music on your show.
CRAIG SPIVEY:
A lot of it has come from the network that I've been lucky to build. I've worked with some amazing people, both clients and collaborators. So that's been the foundation for all of it, really.
REBECCA HARLING:
If I do a good job, people generally tend to come back, and it may be years apart.
TERRI BROWN:
Say yes to everything. Be there. Make sure everywhere somebody looks, there you are.
JOHN SIMPSON:
It's taken all this time for me to realise that you've got to steer it to what they want, but you do it in your own way.
Video 1
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By the end of this week you should be able to:
- recognise the value of market research
- identify your own target market and audience
- analyse your competitors.
You’ll start by reviewing your thoughts so far on the potential audience for your creative idea.