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| | The The CopyWriters Connection Network is not currently active and cannot accept new posts | | Are You Selling or Spinning The Wheel? | Views: 324 | | Jan 23, 2006 7:19 pm | | Are You Selling or Spinning The Wheel? | # | 
Steven Boaze | |
Starting a business, whether it's retail products
or services, must establish their own "niche." It
doesn't matter how great your products or
services is, how great your sales letter is or
your headlines, offers or what a great price
you're offering. If you try to sell your products
or services to the wrong market, there's a strong
guarantee it's not going to work.
To me, this is a bunch of horsehockey! If you're
not selling then you're spinning your business
wheel to death. All the ad campaigns thrown
together, all the promotional money spent daily
on finding a niche market isn't going to make you
rich!
People ask me "What is a niche?" A niche is a
particular specialty in which a business or
person finds they prosper. Niche strategy in
marketing is to market to a small but lucrative
portion of the market. The small size of the
niche generally ensures efficient marketing
efforts and few if any direct competitors.
On the other hand, if you take an average product
or service, and maybe your ad copy is only medium
grade, maybe your price is only medium grade,
that I've actually seen these marketing campaigns
go to the right targeted audience and pull a
decent response. The point I'm trying to make is,
there's a difference between the right target
market and a good marketing campaign.
So, if you feel that you must market to your
niche, what can you do to make sure you get the
right audience? You have to begin by knowing who
your products and services actually appeal to.
Then find the largest market that can actually
buy your products or services or the best market
that can afford to pay for your products or
services.
You might find multiple markets. You don't want
to leave any markets out. You want to be sure you
target a specific market tightly enough so you
can appeal to their interest, but not so tightly
that you don't appeal to anyone at all.
If you have a product that appeals to multiple
markets, you can develop multiple campaigns. If
it's a service business, that goes into the home,
then you really appeal to many markets. A home
owner that is a doctor, a homeowner that is a
dentist, a homeowner that is a business owner,
you can target to these specific people and treat
them as a particular market.
One great way to get into a particular market is
to find a professional that is already in that
market or is already a customer of yours and get
them to be a cheerleader for you. Ask them if
they will endorse you. Usually they will if they
like your products or services.
For example, here's a story about my good friend
Janice, a letter she created. Janice wanted to
use her doctor as a reference for her business
and she asked her doctor if she could write a
letter from him to all of the other professionals
in that market on their letterhead in their
envelopes and send out that letter on top of one
of his sales letters. Shockingly, her doctor said
yes.
Her letter read like this; "I don't do this very
often, but I've received such good service from
Dr. Blevins, I thought the rest of you should
know about this." And on with her message she
explained the good service and at the end she
left her business information.
The results were staggering and Janice Then gave
her doctor a free gift. She bought Dr. Blevins a
box of his letterheads being that she used
theirs, and she sent her Doctor an organizer to
put them in.
You see, what this does is it makes sure the
envelope gets opened from her market because
other doctors will open information on other
doctors. Always give your niche some kind of
position to help you increase your business if
you must market this way - Otherwise, start
selling if you want to see any difference in your
income.
Steven Boaze Private Reply to Steven Boaze | | Jan 24, 2006 2:44 am | | re: Are You Selling or Spinning The Wheel? | # | 
Wot's... Uh The Deal (Vijai) | | Steve,
This is my first post on this network. Firstly, I'd like to thank you for the link to the free 2006 Business Planner. Although we are never short of PIM's, I personally thought that this piece of software was pretty good. I still haven't explored it entirely, but will surely do that. Absolutley love the background feature, although I'm not sure if there is a shortcut key to activate it. Great effort anyways, thanks.
So many marketing books, so many marketing strategy books, yet we find individuals and businesses floundering in their attempts to maintain a steady flow of projects/income.
I agree partly to the fact that pursuing that 'niche' market can prove to be very expensive, unless you are in an extremely high-worth space. Consumer behaviour among sections in the marketplace keep changing and I would say that at least about 20% are disloyal to their section, sooner or later! So, if one is targetting a certain section, sooner or later they'll realise 20% of their audience has migrated. And God forbid, if this 20% is the 20% that fits the 80/20 principle in your business, you're going to be scrounging to sustain your business.
The doctor-letter example definitely speaks of a bold initiative and I must agree, if your work speaks for itself, getting it endorsed becomes an easier task.
Having an amoebic marketing plan like you suggested (correct me if I'm wrong) which extends to slightly different (and possibly growing) markets as per demand & supply and interest parameters, is probably a good thing, although that involves much more concentrated effort and a bit of science, mathematics, psychology and financial astuteness (but that's marketing anyways!)
Ideally I would prefer having a strong base (a kind of a market knowledge engine if you may) for a top level marketing plan and have sub-marketing plans that stem from the main one but look and execute differently when launched.Private Reply to Wot's... Uh The Deal (Vijai) | | |
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