Target your Niche: Essential first step in creating a marketing strategy
January 21, 2008
The first step in creating a marketing strategy is to identify your niche or target market.
This will provide the foundation you need to develop your marketing strategy. When you zero in on your target customer, you’ll find it MUCH easier to create marketing messages that "connect" with your customers.
Many businesses find identifying a niche market difficult. The owner will look at his client or customer list and say, "THEY HAVE NOTHING IN COMMON! They’re young… they’re old and they’re everything in between! I have women, I have men and I have children as customers! I have married people, single people and divorced people as customers! How can I find some demographic that all of my customers have in common?"
If this is your battle cry, you are not alone!
First, let’s "reframe" how you think of targeting your customers. For example, one client of mine came to me a year ago with just such a lament. Media rep after media rep had hammered the point that targeting his niche market meant identifying the age, gender and income of his ideal client. However, when we began to look BEYOND the surface, we found one interesting thing ALL of his clients had in common: They were all relatively affluent and they were all interested in healthy living. In the end, his clients were interested in health foods, natural and whole foods AND exercise.
Suddenly, everything came into focus. His television commercial is now running on Food Network and we’re creating POS pieces to place in local gyms and health food stores. All because we looked BEYOND the simple demographics and dug deeper. In the "marketing biz" it’s known as "behavioral targeting"…. when a group of demographically diverse people are targeted based on behavior instead of age/income/gender.
Many business owners find identifying a niche market difficult and that is why I wrote Beyond the Niche: Essential Tools You Need to Create Marketing Messages that Deliver Results. In the book, I help to simplify the process of defining your target or niche market.
Niche Marketing Tactics: Articles as an essential Niche Marketing Tool
October 1, 2007
It’s time for another discussion of the Major Sale vs the Minor Sale and why you MUST know which your business is making BEFORE you begin putting niche marketing tactics into place.
As a refresher, niche marketing (as the term is used here) is merely narrowing your marketing focus in order to broaden your sales.
Articles are a GREAT niche marketing tactic if you are making the Major Sale. The Major Sale is defined by Neil Rackham in SPIN Selling
- There is more than one decision-maker
- The buyer’s financial and/or emotional investment is significant
- The purchase warrants significant time and research into alternatives.
- There is the potential for a long-term relationship between you/the business and the customer.
- The consequences of making a purchasing mistake are high.
So, if you’re a consultant, attorney, realtor, etc who is selling your knowledge, then you are making a Major Sale and writing articles is indeed a GREAT marketing tactic. After all, an essential element in making the Major Sale is to develop TRUST, and articles are a great way to demonstrate your expertise and build trust.
In a recent post, Nitro Marketing featured the following Gary Halbert story:
The late Gary Halbert used to tell a story about opening a hamburger stand. At his seminars he would ask the crowd this question:
“If you and I were both going to open a hamburger stand and you could pick any one thing to give you an advantage over me, what would you pick?”
The people from the crowd would shout back:
“A great location”
“The best-tasting hamburger”
“A clean, attractive stand”
“Excellent employees”
After a while of this Gary would pause and say: “Go right ahead and take all those, but I can guarantee my stand will outsell yours, because the one advantage I’m going to pick is… A STARVING CROWD!"
SELLING HAMBURGERS IS AN EXAMPLE OF A MINOR SALE!!!
If you’re making a Major Sale… then all of the other factors mentioned by Gary’s audiences would come into play because, by definition, the Major Sale warrants the investment of time and energy into alternatives.
In the Minor Sale, you’re hungry so you buy a hamburger. If there are no hamburger stands around, then you’ll buy a hot dog or whatever is available. Your roaring stomach will drive you to make a decision and move on.
However, in the Major Sale, it’s different. There is no GNAWING hunger driving you forward, compelling you to take action. As a result, the realtor (who lives squarely in the middle of Major Sale territory) may spend months or even years showing homes to prospective clients.
If you’re making a MAJOR SALE…. one way to create a sensation of "starvation" is through compelling articles!
For an excellent example of this tactic in practice, visit the Harper Team’s blog and read the post "Don’t Get Stuck with Two Houses." It’s a great example of someone engaged in making a Major Sale using an article as fuel to move prospective customers to positive action!
