Growing the business in the niche – Part II – Using reciprocity

differentiation, Marketing, Positioning, Product Management, Sales

Given the 3 assumptions I had stated in my last post apply, from here on we will look at different examples – on how I would go about expanding the business in the niche.

Its never easy to get into a new market with a new product or service. So we first do our survey on the demographics to see if there is a large enough market. So if we were to look at the market for Red Eggs – our niche in the eggs segment, that we want to capture then we would find a segment of people who like to have gourmet eggs, who understand the benefits of these eggs.

Then our first effort would be to find where can we get hold of the top influencers – the top 25 people you could influence with your product or service who would then vouch directly or indirectly. You need to then figure out what’s in it for them, how you can help them, for them to be interested in looking for you. What Robert Cialdini call the principle of “Reciprocity”

So if there is a celebrity chef, a store which sells gourmet foods anything else….list out all these 25 people. Then work to figure out who do you know, who knows someone, who knows one of the 25 people and start making your connections.

First help them in areas where they need support – and everyone has some areas where they need support. Maybe you help them in their charity work – all the red eggs that you sell – all the revenues go to fund their favorite charity as an example. This helps get you exposure and further connects.

Since you have chosen a very small market to focus on you will not have to waste energy or money or time to go all across and reach people in distant places. You will be local in the area and the word about your product or service will spread fast.

As a next step you need to find the people who already do business with the potential client you have identified. So if you are looking to start in a small county in New Jersey which has luxury homes where you think your ideal client for “red eggs” exists then you find other businesses who sell to those luxury home owners. The dry-cleaners, the carpet cleaners, the local retailers and set up a mechanism to help them keep all the profits from what they sell of you “red eggs”. If you hear the ilovemarketing podcasts from Joe Polish and Dean Jackson you will get so many ideas on doing these partnerships

Which brings me to a very important concept , to pick up tomorrow – the life time value of a client. You can’t do a lot of the stuff I am speaking about above, if you don’t understand this concept.

Till tomorrow then.

Carpe Diem!!!

Growing the business in a niche

differentiation, Marketing, Positioning, Product Management, Sales

One of the biggest arguments that I hear against identifying a niche is “How will we grow and adrress the full market”

First trying to address the “full” market is a fallacy. Its not ever feasible….but we will address it in a separate post.

For this post let’s keep our focus on the niche you have and how to grow it.

We will take 2 examples – one from the low value “eggs” that we had touched earlier and another from the IT services segment which is B2B and ultra high value.

This topic will be carried over multiple posts, because any product management process will need to go through multiple steps to make it successful in the market. The logic will hold whether you are selling financial services or consumer products or technology services

The assumption over here is that you have a ” Market in the niche” . If you are reading my blog posts for the first time, I would suggest you look at my previous posts where I give a detailed explanation on this topic.

The second assumption is that you have a very good product or service and you can differentiate it in the market.

The third assumption is that you have analyzed and seen that there’s what Dan Kennedy used to call a “Hungry Crowd” or a market for your product or service.

So if you are trying to sell eggs in a locality which is predominantly populated by vegetarian people , then however good your product is, you will never be able to grow your business because there are not enough people who eat eggs. So there will hardly be anyone willing to eat a “red” egg ( see my previous post on this red egg example)

With the above 3 assumptions in place, it means you have been able to identify your market, identify the niche in the market and size it.

From the next post we will start looking at making an entry into the market and growing it.

Till next time.

Carpe Diem!!!

When you polarize….you monetize

differentiation, Marketing, Positioning, Product Management, Sales

I heard this statement from Dr. Sean Stephenson at the ilovemarketing mastery inaugural course.

The word polarize means to split into such that they seem so different like the north and south pole of the earth. The key terms in this statement are split and different. Like the red pawn and black pawn in the picture.

This is so closely related to what I have been talking about in the last few days on differentiation, perception and choosing a niche.

Apple polarizes is audiences, so does a Lamborghini. You don’t go into a Lamborghini showroom and ask for a discount…. they may tell you there’s a waiting list. They are angle to do that because they own that space in the minds of the customers. Similarly if you don’t value the positioning of Lamborghini you won’t even go into their showrooms

The job of good marketing is to attract your best prospects and repel all others. Once you do a good job there you can really make good profits.

Till next time.

Carpe Diem!!!

Selecting a Niche – Part III – the economics

differentiation, Marketing, Positioning, Product Management, Sales

Today I will speak about the economics of selecting a niche.

We have already identified multiple advantages of selecting a niche and creating a perception of being different.

Once you have identified the niche the fundamental economic advantage you get is that you don’t have to try to send your message to everyone in the universe. Now your message is only going to a select few who meet the criteria of your ideal customer in the niche. So we have brought in a new term with respect to marketing to your customers – ideal customer.

So a niche could be people who like red eggs. Instead of looking at the whole of the United States to start doing your marketing, you may want to target red egg eaters in Old Town Alexandria, who are in the age group of 55-65 years. You may target this because your poultry farm is in VA so logistically its easier for you to address the market and then because your red eggs have higher protein, people over the age of 55 might be a good market to check.

So now your challenge is to find a way to identify how many of the above age group people live in Old Town Alexandria and how do you reach them.

Obviously you need to look at the other aspect which I had mentioned in my earlier posts. Which is – is there a market in the niche. So if you realize that there are only 200 people who fit your profile then may be it may not be a market for you if your poultry farm is producing 6000 eggs a day while it maybe a worthwhile market if your farm is only producing 20 eggs a day.

So keep this in mind always – you need to identify a niche in the market but you need to also see if there is a market in the niche.

If this market suits you then you now only need to be targeting this specific set of people at a defined frequency in the media of their choice. So instead of doing broad level advertising on radio or tv you could now target a media which is more tuned to this population in Old Town Alexandria.

This way even a very small budget can go a very long way to reach your ideal customer.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!