The actual nuance of a identifying a Single Target Market

Marketing, segmentation, single target market

I keep writing a lot about the SIngle Target Market. Its a term I learned from Dean Jackson. I have known about segmenting and niching but breaking down a market by usage was something which appealed to me.

Now why is it important to drill down to a Single Target Market . Once you have been able to figure that part out, you can then work on the different media you can use to engage this person and then work on what is the message you will send through the different media.

To show a practical example. We were targeting companies for selling our services. Now you can choose partners in different ways. We first did a segmentation by OEMs. If they were selling a specific OEM’s product, then we thought we could make them a partner to sell add on services from us – but these partners could be in different states, they could be of different sizes – single person companies, large companies and everything in-between. They could be owned by men, women, public listed or private. So we decided to put the limit on minimum number of employees and maximum number of employees to segment further.

As we kept on going deeper we found even more characteristics that we had not even noticed when we did the general rule partners of OEMs.

So one rule of thumb that I have figured out , to identify a single target market , is to figure what other attribute exists that could make this data set smaller till it can’t be made any smaller. Then figure out how you can combine based on the usage and expand from there once you see success with one usage area.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

Try just one thing….then move to the next

ideas, Marketing, Sales

I hope the content I give is useful and interesting. It’s good to know that some people read it and some people like it. I am grateful to all of you who regularly read my blog.

However I will be really happy to know if you have used the various marketing and sales ideas which I have given, actually helped you make money. Whether you work for an organisation or are an entrepreneur, at the end of the day its about getting business to happen. Action is what is critical to get anything to succeed. So if you don’t try out the ideas, you wouldn’t know if what I am writing about can be applied to you.

Like the picture above, the film can be in the mind of the director, but until someone cries action and people start acting, a film cannot be made. No director won an Oscar for a film which was not made.

My advise is good for the small companies / entrepreneurs. Its not for the mega corporations who have lots of money to spend in creating brands and then assuming business will come. Mine is more about the small company which does not have enough funds so they have to ensure that whatever they do gets converted into revenue.

Even within these types of companies, there could be some who can afford to invest in relationships and build the business while for some it mean creating a pipeline of prospects today so that they can survive tomorrow and ensure a smooth flow of business.

However you will not know if what you are reading is worthwhile if you don’t try it. If you try and it does work excellent, let me know. If you try it and it doesn’t work, even then let me know. I am trying to see how broad based is the possibility of the ideas I share. These are all things which I have tried to work out and see. When I see some success, I try to see if they can be applied to other areas also. If because of my ideas you can get more success, I will be extremely delighted.

So I look forward to your comments.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

A spectrum of people to be targeted

lead generation, Marketing, single target market

Once you have chosen a Single Target Market to focus on, you need to find ways of addressing that market.

In any market there will be a spectrum of customers- At one end you will have people who are reactive, they are in pain and they need a solution now. At the other end of the spectrum you will have people who are progressive and proactive and want to take measures before a problem occurs. And in between are people at various degrees between getting into pain and getting to become progressive after observing something.

Generally its a good idea to target the people who are in pain first, because they can give an order immediately. Immediately is a relative term – depending on the sales cycle of what you are selling. If you were caught in a hurricane or cyclone and your roof has blown away, then you need to get the roof fixed immediately as in yesterday. On the other hand if you are in B2B , immediately could mean a roll out in 3 months.

But how do you identify someone who is in pain in your market. Most people who want an instantaneous answer would always search on Google. So if you can advertise on Google with the exact same terms that the customer would think when in pain, then they could come on top of Google search and get business.

As I had in my post yesterday however, you have got someone to raise their hand by clicking on the link but if you don’t capture their email address, that advertisement will go waste the person visits your website without giving their email. You need to figure out a way to address this.

Similarly for the other end of the spectrum – the progressive or proactive folks. They will also go on Google or in case of B2B, they will ask their subordinates to find out things. Those subordinates will also first go to Google. So what will they those folks think when they have to do some thing proactive in their category. Again put out the paid advertisements with respect to that.

But first focus on the people in pain, because you can get business faster. Once you delight the customer, then you can do even more business with referrals and other things.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

Lead magnets…..different medium….different possibilities

campaign, digital, lead generation, Marketing, Sales

Marketing is applied psychology. So you need to figure out the strengths of each medium and blend it with human psychology to help you get leads.

In my earlier posts I have written about different physical and electronic media for generating leads. Today we will limit to seeing how you can utilize electronic media.

One of the key things about Google (including YouTube) paid search and to some extent Facebook paid search is the fact that if you can master them, you can can have the equivalent of thousands of sales people working for you, whenever someone is searching for something similar to what you offer.

So while you might show up because of the PPC, how do you ensure that people click on your advertisement first and then leave their email id, so that you can keep marketing to them in the future.

This is where the challenge starts. With PPC, if you have some smart people, you can get your advertisement to show up at a reasonable cost. But there’s no point if they come to your site and leave without giving you their email address. Then your advertisement has been wasted.

One simple way which I have tested after listening to Joe Polish and Dean Jackson on thir Ilovemarketing.com podcast is offering relevant reports. Why this works is that human beings are gatherers/ collectors. So when you are offering something which the person can collect right now and consume whenever they want, they tend to give their email ids.

Right now I have seen that offering this lead magnet using this psychology has worked on getting about 10 email ids a week. I am now working on seeing how to scale it up to see if I can take it to a about a hundred a week….Will keep you posted.

I would suggest mean time if you’ll can also try and give me feedback, in the comments section below, on your success or failure with this.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!