The Problem with Your Marketing
How is your business growth coming along? Are you growing at the same rate that you used to? Are you growing at all? There are many, many environmental factors that can inhibit a marketing strategy; however, there are just as many external factors that can improve your campaigns! We tend to use the former to excuse our marketing stagnation and forget the latter.
The reality is that your marketing program is probably broken. There is a significant problem with most marketing strategies. A problem that may not have been an issue at one time, but as your business grows, the market changes, and technology evolves, you may have fallen into a growth slump.
Enough context. What is the problem? Simple. Your target market (or niche market) is too broad.
“Your target market is too broad.”
Let me say that again for the people who zoned out already: Your marketing strategy is not targeted enough!
Most people are very familiar with the 5 P’s of Marketing (price, product, promotion, place, and people). What most people, and many “experts”, don’t know is this: which one is the most important? These aforementioned experts will tell you that they are all equally as important. They are wrong. Well, they are wrong if your priorities are effort or effectiveness.
The most important P in Marketing is PEOPLE.
If you properly define PEOPLE, and are highly, highly specific, it will inform the rest of your marketing strategies. How do I mean?
Let’s say we sell something generic, like t shirts. Well, with a broad marketing strategy of “anyone and everyone is a potential customer!”, you will fight for table scraps in a highly competitive and oversaturated market. There is significantly more visibility for a big fish in a little pond than a small fish in a big pond. So let’s narrow. Perhaps we want to be the number one provider of t shirts for all local, public middle school sports teams in our county, which is considered a mid-high income region. Great! That means that our people are middle school coaches, athletic directors, booster clubs, or parents. How does this help?
P - Product - quality product, probably customized per athlete, for warm ups, jerseys, or school-branded support gear
P - Price - mid to high income means they are willing to pay for a quality product. Promote qualities that your niche is willing to pay more for. This comes from research of your niche and competition. Examples could include: fast turnover time, customized orders, variety, customer service
P - Place - where are these stakeholders? They are at middle school sporting events. They are ordering pizzas. They are ordering trophies for end of year parties. They are at the school! They are families, so they are probably at other local businesses that are family-centered.
P - Promotion - easy, just put it all together! One could be - fliers at a putt-putt place advertising something like “The fastest service for the fastest football players in __ County.” “High quality gear for high quality baseball programs.” It could be philanthropic events at a local pizza place, like a spirit night - pizza place donates 10% of all sales, T Shirt company will match, and all money goes back to the ___ County Middle School Football Team.
“The most important P in Marketing is PEOPLE.”
Do you see? Creativity can sometimes be hard to access. But we don’t need creativity when we can create a process. If we properly and fully define our target market, we can create a process that feeds the rest of our marketing. This is how you gain majority market share! By being a big fish in a very small pond.
So what do you do when you own the pond? Here’s the neat thing. If you can solve their needs in excess, they will refer you to others in the market, but it is likely, or even inevitable, that they refer you to a parallel market. Which is a logical next step for further growth. Grow in one market, and after you have majority of loyal customers, go after the market right next door.
Stop marketing to everyone! Market to your target.
Be a big fish.
Dr Noa D Stroop