Create your own niche: creating your own TOMA ladder
June 28, 2007
"Marketing speak" term you need to know: TOMA = Top of Mind Awareness
TOMA = your name coming to mind when someone mentions a topic.
In my book Beyond the Niche, I tell the compelling story of a tiny bakery who succeeded despite the fact that the odds were definitely stack against them.
One of the keys to that success was that we created a new TOMA ladder for them While their success story may have captured your imagination, it’s important to understand what we were up against at the time.
In the Ida Mae story, keep in mind that every grocery store in the area had an in-store bakery, not to mention the bakery inside the extremely popular local Wal-Mart store. In a word, there was no way we could compete head to head with the bakeries within the grocery stores.
The little bakery couldn’t compete with those in-house bakeries when it came to price and they definitely couldn’t compete when it came to convenience. When it came to marketing budgets, the little bakery was definitely in the role of “David” as in the “David vs. Goliath”.
Our solution was simple. We never referred to the Ida Mae’s as a “bakery.” Instead, it was the little store that made the most incredible home-made style taste treats. We created our own TOMA ladder of “home-made style goodies” and dominated our own self created niche.
If you’re in business on the web, make no doubt about it, your business will live or die by your position on each individual’s TOMA ladder. No matter which TOMA ladder you decide to compete, you’ll need to tell enough people what you are all about and be sure to keep telling them what you already told them.
Creating your own TOMA ladder gives you a GREAT advantage. So how can you "break away" from the pack and get in front of your own parade? Defining your OWN niche is truly a powerful tool in creating advertising and marketing success!
Create your own niche
June 26, 2007
In my book, I talk about how important it is to developing TOMA (Top of Mind Awareness) for your business through your advertising.
There are filters at work in your customer’s mind which help to protect them from information overload. Well, in addition to those filters, your customer’s mind is also filled with assorted hierarchies which we’ll refer to as “TOMA (Top of Mind Awareness) ladders of the mind.” These assorted ladders help you to decide quickly and easily where you’ll go for certain products or services.
The TOMA ladder theory is yet another “brain protection” device. This theory assumes that each ladder has on average from three to five “rungs.” By keeping information organized in this manner, you only have to run through a mental list of three to five stores where you can run to pick up a particular product instead of trying to scan every possible place you could go to get the product.
Take for example the simple act of buying milk. When you need milk, you mentally access your mind’s TOMA ladder to see which purveyor of milk is currently holding the number one position. Most of us will only check the first three rungs, though if pressed an individual may be able to list 5 or even 9 stores, given enough time.
Quick! Name all the stores where you can go to purchase a gallon of milk.
If you are selling milk then it’s your marketing goal to get your business’ name on your customer’s mental “short list.
Using niche marketing in real estate
June 22, 2007
Great post over at Canadian Real Estate Online about the power of carefully wording your ads to attract the RIGHT kind of clients.
In this case, the investor had a property near a university but didn’t want to attract university students as potential renters. By carefully crafting their message, they were able to "weed out" students before they picked up the phone. The end result: the investor found EXACTLY the type of renter desired for the property. The upscale professionals have been ideal renters for the past two years….making it a win win situation for everyone involved.
Small focused marketing steps can make all the difference in the world.
The same is true in other business ventures as well!
Carefully crafting your message to it appeals to the right audience is essential to creating marketing success. This is an excellent illustration of how, by choosing carefully that the property manager was able to avoid attracting college students to a unit near a university is truly niche marketing in action!
Advertising works: Open Wallet Confession
June 19, 2007
My Open Wallet is a fascinating blog where the author reveals (anonymously) her spending and saving habits. In her post : Rule 11 See No Evil, Hear No Evil she writes:
I don’t watch TV. I think this alone is a huge factor. If I don’t see something, I won’t want it. And let’s face it, advertising works. I can’t tell you how often I’ve had to grit my teeth and pass up buying a Swiffer– my brain tells me a regular mop or paper towel will do the job, but the commercials make the Swiffer look so much more fun!
The Swiffer ads DO make cleaning look like fun… and fun is a GREAT way to boost the bottom line!
I’ve been breaking this rule in my own business lately. I’m selling blogging to my clients but I don’t present it as being "fun". As a matter of fact, I present it as something they’ll have to work at to become proficient. Maybe I should change my pitch. My blogging metaphor has been, "Blogging is like exercise"…. maybe I should change it to "Blogging is like a party where you’ll meet new friends."
Frequently cited key to success
June 11, 2007
Choosing a niche or target market is a frequently cited key to web site success. Whether it’s a blog or a traditional web site, if you want to effectively reach your audience, the process begins by DEFINING that audience.
Over at Building a Super Blog Collis Ta’eed takes you behind the scenes of a super successful blog launch. The number one tip: Choosing the right niche.
One great word of advice from Collis is this: Choose a market that is underserved. In other words, identify a need that isn’t currently being met, then meet that need.
That’s really the key to success.
Niche Marketing 2.0
June 6, 2007
According to Advertising Age Today’s Niche Marketing Is All About Narrow, Not Small.
It’s been a LONG time since I thought of defining a target or niche market as focusing on something small. I guess that’s because I was taught by a true visionary who snapped me up right out of college and set me on the path of true marketing enlightenment. Her tenure in the trenches of selling radio advertising prior to opening her own agency meant she was extremely well versed in the finer points of targeting your marketing message.
According to the article:
So rather than equating niche with "small," think "narrow." As in narrowly targeting a group whose self interest/self concept is so clear that a marketer can offer something ultrarelevant and vastly different from alternatives. Then the scarcity principle allows the marketer to charge a premium, reaping higher margins.
When you truly begin focusing on a niche market, you create an offering for which there are few alternatives. You become a specialist and suddenly the generalists, no matter what their size, look like pretenders to the throne.
All that matters is what’s important to the customer….
June 5, 2007
As you try to reach out and touch someone with your marketing or advertising, it’s ESSENTIAL that you focus upon what’s important to the CUSTOMER. I pound that drum pretty hard in my book, Beyond the Niche but it’s always nice when you find someone else pounding out the same beat! Drew McLellan’s post on Have you committed a Cardinal Zin says:
Whether you are the creator/inventor, business owner, assembly line foreman, sales manager or marketing genius — what matters to you may very well not matter one iota to your consumers or potential consumers. In other words, they don’t want to buy what you’re selling.
That doesn’t mean they don’t want to buy. It means you need to get out of the way. It means you need to be smart enough to learn what matters to or influences them.
PREACH IT BROTHER!!! The Copywriting Maven is dancing to the same beat with her post Just Who Do You Think You’re Talking to … and are they listening? Stephen Denny takes it a step further on his post Marketing Lust where he says:
We can talk ourselves into almost anything. What constitutes a “need” at any given point of time falls anywhere on the axis that runs from "passing fancy" to "temporary insanity," depending on the size and shape of the object of your desire.
If, as a marketer, you know what buttons to push…. meaning what’s important to the customer, then it’s just that easy to create compelling copy.
