If you need to get more clients, sell more products and services or grow your business, then you need to follow this simple formula to get your marketing started off on the right foot. This formula is articulated by Dan Kennedy, one of the world’s foremost experts on marketing.
- Find a market (a group of people) that has needs and desires not being met.
- The market must have people both able and willing to pay to have their unfulfilled needs and desires met.
- This market must match up with what you can and are willing to deliver, and one that you could make a compelling argument for you doing it.
- Create a question to ask that market.
- Offer something to those that answered the question in a particular way.
- Sell something to this group of people.
Sounds simple. It is. But most businesses fail at it miserably.
In my observation, many businesses never define their target audience well enough to really separate themselves from the competition. So step number one above is already out the window before the marketing even gets into place.
You may be asking how you pick a market. After all, you may service all types of businesses in a geographical area.
Find A Market
Let’s look at how to “Find A Market”, and use a commercial insurance agent as an example. If you had a commercial insurance agency, you might find that any business would be a good target for you. After all, every business needs insurance. But “Every Business” is a very difficult group to market to.
For one, it’s too big. You probably don’t have enough marketing dollars to touch everyone in your “market”. Two, “every business” is not a specific enough target that you can create a killer message for. And if you’re not specific, your marketing will be generic and incapable of speaking directly to the prospect.
Even though you could literally serve every type of business as a commercial insurer, your marketing needs to cater to a specific audience for your message to have meaning. Your message will NEVER resonate with everyone, so it needs to be specifically targeted.
Segment Your Audience
So what are you to do? How about looking through your database and finding a few companies that are in the same industry? Let’s say you find two or three businesses in the IT category, and you happen to like working with them. Now develop a marketing message that specifically speaks to the needs of an IT company.
You could use a message like…”Good News for all Denver based IT Companies……..I can save you up to 24% on your business insurance”. You may include a testimonial from one of your IT customers along with a summary of typical problems IT companies run into, an offer and a call to action. And POW; you have a much more powerful piece of marketing that will produce more results than a generic message going out to every business category.
Deliver Your Message
Once you have this message, you can place it using hundreds of marketing tactics. From direct mail, to ad placements, pay per click, social media and the list goes on and on.
If you would like to have a brain storming session on picking a niche market and developing a message that will resonate with that audience, send Lynndell an email at Lynndell@mailmasters.net to set up a time to talk. You can call as well to 303-607-9424.
