Even if you have an old business but you are entering into a new market or entering with a completely new product/service it makes sense to identify the Single Target Market that you would like to focus. Most of us in business don’t have the luxury of creating a product from ground up based on market research about a need in the market. More often than not, we are given a product or service and as marketing heads, we are supposed to identify the right market, right audience etc.

I typically follow a checklist of about 12 items which primarily focus on the customer side of the issues that we should be looking for when we decide to take a product or service to the market.

Before anything else that we do, I would like to understand, what is the problem that the customer thinks that we are solving……not what we think, we are solving for the customer. So as an example – using automation, I might help the customer reduce his time for making a data entry of items that are coming into his factory by reading the incoming invoices quickly.

However for the customer, it might mean, that there are less trucks waiting in line on the road, because the entry is happening faster due to the use of automatic invoice readers. In the present situation, without the automatic readers, the line of trucks could be blocking the road and because of which the cops might be paying a visit to them often to get the road cleared. Maybe even levying a fine.

So while you may think you are solving the problem of inputing invoices and saving time, the actual problem you are solving is eliminating the hassle for the factory manager to ensure the roads don’t get blocked by the trucks coming into their factory.

Why is knowing “what is the problem” important – for two reasons – first is the perception issue – the customer may actually not think of a putting up automatic readers because they already have experienced people doing the job today and putting up an investment in a new technology may not be a priority, so your proposal gets pushed back.

However talking about the line of trucks, which are causing a traffic jam, could be a different ball game.

Its the same solution from your perspective – automating the incoming invoices with the trucks – but to the customer it may be a different aspect.

So it’s important to quickly test your ideas with customers with actual interactions to identify the right message that may resonate with customers. If you follow my blogs, you will notice, I lay a lot of emphasis on testing of different messages, strategies etc. Its absolutely critical , if you want to succeed, to quickly test what is working and what is not.

Generally if a message resonates with an audience, the response can be very quick. However if a message is not resonating, then you have to keep tweaking before giving up. A lot of times dropping the product is a much better idea then to be stuck with the “sunk cost bias”

This post focussed on one of the key starting points to help you identify the market you need to focus on and identify the issues from the customer’s perspectives.

In future posts, I will cover other points in my check list.

Till next time then.

Capre Diem!!!

P.S: If any of you , is however interested in receiving my 12 point checklist to help you plan your marketing strategy for a new launch, just message me with your email id and I will send it out to you.