25A

Existing Market. 

Step 1: I believe my next goal for my business venture is to learn how to attract a target segment. I feel comfortable having a large segment that includes all genders, races, ages, and professions, but the issue is attracting them.

Step 2: I received feedback from my three (facetime) interviews that I would need to do some marketing to get the new company launched and known. 2 of my interviewees suggested that I should have a large online presence in terms of marketing since Auds&Pods is an electronic platform and also because of coronavirus, everyone is on their phones and inside all day. One person suggested that I make an Instagram for the company and start following authors and podcasters.  I asked them if ads on social media would be annoying because I have a tendency to skip ads or scroll past them when I see them. They suggested that if there are enough ads, eventually it'll pique some interest. They said real posts instead of stories are more effective in their opinion because not everyone watches Instagram stories. They also said Facebook does a good job of blending in their ads with regular posts so its more difficult to identify its an ad and scroll past it before reading the whole post.

Step 3:

To penetrate my existing market, I would need to spend some money on marketing and advertising. I have decided that at this time, it would be best to have an online presence since it is an online platform and everyone is on their phones during Coronavirus. No one is really outside enough to see billboards. The only non-virtual advertising I have considered is making flyers and dropping it off at people's front door because I think now more than ever, people are appreciating home-made items because a big trend is community during this time of crisis!

For the online presence, I want to focus on Facebook and Instagram because those seem to be the most popular social media sites across all ages. I realize TikTok is a huge platform now and I see a lot of ads on there, but I don’t think middle-aged and older use TikTok which is about 2/3 of my target segment. I would primarily do actual posts instead of stories for ads based on the feedback I got.

New Market.

Step 1: I would say the market that is left out of my target segment is people of younger ages like babies, toddlers, elementary kids, and middle school kids. I originally left this age range out of my target segment because I don’t think kids read or listen to audiobooks and podcasts that much.

Step 2: An idea I have for this is to actually include nursery rhymes and children's books because I could see parents implementing this in their household. Listening to audios is also really good for helping you fall asleep, so parents could play these audios at bedtime for bed-time stories.

Step 3: So I chose to interview two moms because they would be the one making their kids listen to audiobooks and podcasts. They both thought this was a fantastic idea and thought it would take off because often mothers have like "mommy and me" groups or attend playgroups with their kids where they discuss lifestyle things with other moms and kids. They said having popular children's books, books that teach foreign languages, and short audiobooks/podcasts with cool sounds effects would be the kinds of subjects they would make their children listen to them.

Step 4:  

I'm very satisfied with this part of the market that I can include in my target segment. I got the idea that they wouldn’t fit into this business model at the very beginning of this class, and never gave it another thought. After thinking about how to widen my target segment, I figured out that parents normally make their kids read or read them bedtime stories.

What surprised me the most though was how my two interviewees were so excited about this idea. I was sure they were just going to say it sounds good and not give much feedback, but they ended up being super intrigued and supportive. The only thing I'm skeptical of is that normally when I present homework/project ideas to parents, they are just so enthusiastic that I'm learning in school that they tend to be excited about anything I say. Just a thought to consider moving forward.