Database or list versus message

B2B, differentiation, Marketing, messaging, segmentation, single target market

You know I keep talking about identifying a single Target Market to start with, a single niche in the market with a market in the niche.

One of the key reasons for that is because when you look at a small market then identifying the right people in your market to whom you will give the message becomes easier.

There are a lot of people who would bother about the message and spend a lot of time on tuning the message. My belief however has always been on identifying the right list/database/audience. In B2B if you can identify the right set of people to whom you can be messaging on a regular basis, then you have won half the battle.

To these people even if you were to give an average message, you will get a response. However an excellent message to the wrong audience will get you nowhere.

In my team, whenever a campaign doesn’t work, my first emphasis is always on first getting to identify if the database has been audited for the criteria on which we wanted it. Most expensive failures happen because we keep sending a message to the wrong audience. As Mary Ellen Tribby said “you can’t sell lingerie to a lumberjack”.

In B2B messaging there are multiple people in multiple departments, at multiple levels, who need to be covered with your messaging. Get that piece right for a small audience and then scale and you are on your way to success.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

Who’s not your customer – how it helps in messaging

B2B, Business, differentiation, ideal customer, Marketing, messaging, Positioning, segmentation, single target market

Last 2 posts I have been talking about the benefits of identifying who’s not your customer to ensure a better focus.

Once you know whom you don’t want to target consciously, you can actually build your messaging to ensure you make it clear for whom its not applicable and therefore your Ideal Customer recognises that the message is Only for her.

Whether its in the advertisements or in the email messaging that you build you can consciously list out all the people you don’t want to target. A positive way of doing this from the real estate market could be – “where millionaires reside” – which clearly tells people that if you are not a millionaire you can’t afford the homes.

There are clubs which mention the minimum criteria for joining the club. This way they ensure that they don’t waste time with wannabe’s.

In case of technology and B2B companies – you can decide to target companies who don’t use cloud and eliminate all companies who use cloud by doing messaging – “offer for first time cloud users only”.

By identifying “whos not your customer”, you don’t need to have negative connotations to it. Its just a method to ensure you can get your messaging for your specific niche very strongly aligned to the niche.

Try using this for building your messaging and let me know your results in the comments section below.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

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!!!