In our last two blogs we’ve touched on the idea of the importance of having a clear target for any marketing & sales campaign and we just wanted to go into this in a little more depth as it’s so important.
THE IMPORTANCE OF TARGETING
If marketing is not targeted it is sporadic. It’s nature becomes (to borrow a much used marketing analogy) “like throwing mud at a wall and seeing what sticks.” What this means is its essentially putting your marketing message out there in the way that you feel best describes what you have to offer, to as broad an audience as possible, and seeing who bites.
Identifying your target market is about reversing this process. It’s about deciding who you want to bite, for what purpose, and then tailoring your message, your approach, your style and your medium to have the greatest possible likelihood of engaging that audience.
You might be thinking, “but my product has such a broad possible market, I have no need to do this and I wouldn’t want to miss out on one market by specifically targeting another.” There are elements to this that are true. By targeting one specific market you may not reach another but if you speak to too broad a market you many not reach anyone as they might not hear you!
If the ultimate goal is sales, then by taking the time to identify a target market and tailor your message and approach to them you will be heard and you are going to increase your lead conversion ratios from suspects to prospects and prospect to sales (the number of people in your market with the right profile to be a potential customer, converting to some who put their hand up in some way to show interest or a need for your product or service and may want to buy, converting to those who ultimately end up buying). Ultimately this represents a greater return for your efforts. And then you can go through this process for multiple targets so you don’t miss out on any opportunities unless by doing this you end up identifying a niche you want to focus on exclusively.
HOW TO CATCH YOUR FISH!
There are 22 types on nets in wikipedia. Certain nets suit certain types of fish in terms of size etc. Others are suited to the environment and location the fishing taking place. It’s not one net fits all!
In the same way, there needs to be some research of your market and consideration of your ideal customer profile to ensure that you pick the right marketing strategy and tactics for them, and ensure that you are using messages that hit home.
As a very basic example, I had a fish monger knock on my door a few weeks ago selling fish. I wasn’t expecting it, his visit was sporadic, I had no idea about the quality of the fish and had had no thoughts of using fish as part of our menu for the week. I like fish, but I didn’t choose to buy any.
Had he taken them time to target me with a message beforehand, perhaps getting someone to go ahead of him either on the same day or a few days beforehand with pictures of suggested recipes to get my imagination firing as to what I could do with it, perhaps some information about the health properties of fish and a little information on where it had come from, he would have laid the ground better and I imagine got more sales.
This is the sort of message that would’ve engaged me as a member of the general public and a one off consumer. However had he been approaching commercial consumers such as restaurants, their concerns would be different and therefore so should his message be. They are a commercial venture who would be reliant on his supply to deliver quality with regularity to their own customers. They would also be concerned about things like margin. Therefore his message for commercial consumer should focus much more on how regularly he could supply, cost and different pricing options, service levels to guarantee quality and where the fish was sourced from in the first place.
Now I imagine he had a finite supply and he knew that he would find a sufficient market to take all of his stock merely by knocking on sufficient doors, but for a lot of businesses it’s not as easy as purely knocking on enough doors, and that’s why targeting is so important.
NEED HELP WITH THIS?
At Engineering Business Growth as part of our ‘Marketing Strategy & Campaign Planning’ programme this is the sort of thing we work with our clients on. So if you feel your business could benefit from a slightly more targeted approach but you are not sure how to go about it, why not get in touch for a no obligation chat about how we can help by emailing info@engineeringbusinessgrowth.com
