Author: animeshjmathur

Who’s not your customer

differentiation, ideal customer, Marketing, Positioning, Product Management, segmentation, single target market

This statement is as or even more important than identifying who’s your ideal customer.

Reason being when we are trying to identify the single target market , where this ideal customer exists, we always get emotional. It happens all the time with me as well, I always think that maybe with just a small tweak, I would also have a larger ICP market.

That’s where the problem starts, we do the first tweak, then the second and soon we have a large target market to focus on. Your brain feels comfortable with this because it sees a larger number so a higher possibility of success. The brain works on the mechanism that even a small portion of a large pie is better. However the chance of not being able to any portion of the large pie is a very strong reality.

To avoid this situation seducing you to look at larger numbers, its always a good idea to identify who would be a bad customer for you. This helps eliminate the add-on numbers to your ICP.

Its always always a good idea to look at a very small section of the market, learn from it, dominate it before expanding into others.

Till next time then…..eliminate all the people who would not be good customers.

Carpe Diem!!!

Crowded market or creating a new Market

differentiation, Marketing, Positioning, Product Management, segmentation

Trying to create a new market is very “sexy”. All the marketing books and case studies will talk about the heroics of creating a new market where nothing existed and how those companies took abnormal profits.

What doesn’t get spoken in these case studies is the number of companies who fell by the wayside in trying to create a new market.

I have had my share of misadventures in trying to create a new market where there was none. 

I have found that its always better to check a market where there are existing players and then find a niche in that market. If there are other players already, it means there’s money for that product or service . It means people accept that kind of a product or service.

If people already accept a certain kind of product then its easier to upgrade them to a more powerful version or more expensive version or sometimes to a simpler version. The basic concept of your product or service is known, so you only have to convince on the nuances that you offer.

Here you can be first with the nuance that you are bringing to the table and occupy that position in the minds of the customer.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

Creating Dissonance in the B2B buyer’s mind

B2B, Business, Marketing Stamina, messaging, persistence, segmentation

Most B2B purchases are not impulsive in nature, until and unless they are really low value or for some reason are whimsical in nature.

The advantage of doing B2B business is that because its not impulsive, if you do a good job then most often, you end up staying with that customer for a long time.

One reason for this way of things is the inertia in the procurement department, the other is the cost of doing re-evaluation of vendors so until and unless its something which is periodic in nature, procurement departments don’t want to upset the “apple-cart”. If you are the incumbent, then this is good news.

If you are the outsider, then its bad news, because you have to wait a long time to even get entry – if at all into the account. In B2B accounts you have to have a lot of what Dean Graziosi calls “Marketing Stamina” to keep pounding on the doors of your so called prospects.

What helps though is if you have a small niche to focus on. Then you can concentrate your energies and work with what Dean Jackson calls the “inevitability concept”, which is basically saying that over a 2 year period or 3 year period, some incumbents will make a large enough mistake for the customer want to check you out.

Now this wont happen if you are not in front of the customer on a regular basis with some story which drives what Robin Robins calls “the wedge” into the customer’s existing set-up, so that when the wedge is deep enough the customer feels immense pain and calls you. The dissonance that you create should be large enough for the customer to feel a material impact.

It however needs to be understood that if you have 100 possible customers in your niche, then over a two-three year period you may end up picking up maybe 10 of these. What you then need to keep working on is how can you get these 10 to refer you more clients.

In B2B or for that matter in all kinds of customers a “referred” customer is always a better customer to have both from profitability point of view as well as long term engagement.

If you can keep increasing the share of the customer’s wallet on a regular basis and also get referred then you can have terrific growth.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

B2B Buyer’s and the ecosystem

B2B, Marketing, Marketing Ecosystem, Positioning, Product Management, segmentation

I have written earlier about the “infrastructure” that needs to be in place before you can place a new technology solution in the customer environment. This infrastructure also akin to the ecosystem which exists in nature which helps everyone survive and grow better

If that be the case, then who would the customer contact for a new technology that she’s hearing about.

If you have niched your market well, then you would know most of the market participants.

If you have niche your market well then you might be able to anticipate the questions that will come in the mind of your prospect.

If you can anticipate these you may also then be able to anticipate who would be the existing vendor/partner that the customer may want to talk to. Can you think of building a partnership with this company to get a quicker entry into the ecosystem.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!