7 min Read

You’re Only Marketing to 3% of Your Audience: The Larger Market Formula

Did you know only 3% of your audience is ready to buy right now?

It might seem surprising, but many businesses engage only this small group actively looking to purchase. The remaining 97% aren’t yet ready to convert, but this is where the real opportunity lies.

At Sydney Digital Marketing, we’ve helped countless businesses tap into the 97% by adopting the Larger Market Formula Concept. The concept encourages businesses to segment their audiences and personalise their marketing efforts to reach out to buyers who are not yet ready to make a purchase.

To capture the 97% you need to understand your target audience’s unique challenges, motivations, and pain points. By addressing these, you can nurture prospects from awareness through to the conversion and decision stages. Focusing on challenges, motivations and pain points lets you build trust, foster loyalty, and ensure your brand is top of mind when these buyers are ready to act.

Understanding the 3% Rule

Focusing only on the 3% means missing out on the 97% of potential customers who could convert later. Engaging them early builds relationships, positioning your brand as the go-to choice when they’re ready to act.

Here’s a breakdown of the Larger Market Formula diagram above:

3% Ready Now: This small yet valuable group of active buyers knows what they want and is actively searching for a solution. They’re motivated, comparing options, and ready to make a decision. This is the group most traditional marketing targets – but it’s just the tip of the iceberg.
17% Gathering Information: These are your warm leads – they’re aware they need a solution and are in the early research phase. They may not be ready to purchase immediately but are open to considering your product or service if the right information is provided. With well-timed, informative content, you can nudge them toward making a decision.
20% Problem Aware: This group is aware of their problem but isn’t actively looking for solutions yet. They’re often hesitant or unsure of where to start, and they need education, inspiration, and a little push. By addressing their concerns and showing the benefits of your solution, you can build trust and establish your brand as a valuable resource when they’re ready to take the next step.
60% Unaware of Needs: This is the largest portion of your potential audience – those who don’t yet realise they have a problem that your product or service can solve. They’re not actively seeking a solution, but they’re open to learning more as they come across valuable content. For these prospects, brand awareness efforts are essential. Engaging them early with relevant insights and information plants the seed for future interest, making your brand top of mind when they eventually recognise their need.

Why Engaging the 97% Matters

1. Build Trust

By nurturing those not yet ready to buy, you create a steady pipeline of future customers. Engaging this group early fosters trust and familiarity, making them more likely to turn to you when they’re ready to make a purchase. A future-focused approach adds prospects to the funnel, reducing reliance on “quick wins.”

2. Become The Only Choice

Regular, valuable interactions establish your brand as an industry leader and problem-solver. By addressing pain points even before someone is ready to buy, you make your brand the first that comes to mind when they’re ready to act.

3. Stay Ahead of Competitors

Engaging with the 97% before they’re ready gives you a head start over competitors. By nurturing this group consistently, you build a connection that competitors will find hard to break when they eventually try to attract these buyers.

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How to Talk Directly to the 97%

Understanding your audience is crucial for any business that wants to succeed. Building customer personas can help you achieve this.

Customer personas encourage you to understand the characteristics, motivations and pain points of your target audience. By understanding your customers’ specific issues, you can communicate your product as the solution to these problems. We’ve created a guide to leveraging Customer Personas.

Here’s why the approach works:

Engage Early: By speaking to the frustrations, motivations and challenges your audience faces your brand can offer help before they consider they need it. With a tailored approach, your messaging cuts through the noise and stands out.
Build an Emotional Connection: Pain points allow you to connect emotionally. When people feel understood, they’re more likely to remember your brand and engage.
Position Your Brand as The Solution: Showing you “get” their issues transforms your brand from a service provider to a trusted partner.

Practical Tips

1. Understand Your Audience's Buyers Journey

Only 3% are ready to buy today. Use the Larger Market Formula and segment your audience based on their readiness to purchase. Then, nurture your audience to build trust and familiarity by offering solutions to challenges your audience faces daily.

2. Tailor Content for Each Stage

Use a variety of awareness and educational Content to create blogs, videos, infographics, podcasts and webinars to engage audiences at every stage of the buyer journey and become the trusted resource.

Awareness: For the 60% who are unaware, offer broad content introducing topics relevant to their needs.
Nurturing: For the 37% who are interested but not ready to buy, create guides, case studies, and other nurturing content.
Conversion: For the 3% ready to buy, focus on conversion messaging with testimonials and case studies that reinforce credibility.

Check out our guide to master the buyer journey through the marketing funnel here.

3. Personalise by Pain Points

Tailor content based on audience readiness, offering awareness, nurturing, and conversion content as appropriate.

Use audience segmentation to address specific pain points, for example, a small business owner might value advice on cost-saving, while a marketing manager might seek tips on optimising campaigns.

Bonus Tip: Don’t forget to align this content with their emotional drivers.

4. Measure Content Engagement

To refine your strategy, track how audiences engage with your content.

Use analytics tools and CRM systems to go beyond vanity metrics, tracking customer journeys and engagement at each stage and insights to adjust your content strategy.

Bonus Tip: We love HubSpot for customer-to-conversion journey tracking.

5. Build a Future Sales Pipeline

Follow the above steps and speak directly to your audience’s pain points early, to ensure your brand is top of mind when they are ready to buy.

To Wrap Up

Engaging the 97% of your audience who aren’t yet ready to buy is a long-term investment in brand loyalty and future sales.

By using lessons from the Larger Market Formula in your business and focusing on challenges, motivations and unique pain points, you can nurture potential customers early. This means trust and familiarity are built early and will pay off when they’re ready to make a purchase. And remember, leveraging emotion to form an emotional connection with your audience ensures your messaging is heard through the noise of other competitor brands.

Ready to discover how a pain point-driven approach can transform your marketing and expand your audience? Contact Sydney Digital Marketing today. Let’s create a strategy that captures the full potential of your audience, now and in the future.

Article by

Simon Gould

CEO / Founder / Dad

Founder and leader, Simon established SDM back in 2012. Since then, he has helped 150 clients (and counting) to achieve their digital goals.[…]