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Targeted
marketing enables you to get to appropriate prospective customers more
efficiently than any other marketing strategy. Here's some of the
benefits of targeted marketing.
The
guided missile
Today's
anti-aircraft attack method is far more effective. Just
one heat-seeking ground-to-air missile
is released, which homes accurately in on its target.
That's what
targeted marketing is all about. Recruitment agencies say that the ideal
job advert will attract just one applicant, and that will be the perfect
candidate for the job. Ideally, that is what all advertising should aim
for. That's clearly impractical, but your advertising and promotion
should be moving in that direction.
Unless you
are targeting just one specific prospect (and there are occasions when
you could be doing just that), practical targeted marketing could,
perhaps be more accurately described as...
...Batch targeting
This is where you break your overall target market down into manageable
segments - such as one specific industry, or a geographical area, or a
demographic profile. The segments should not just be ones which are
convenient to you, but ones which allow you to direct, to one specific
target market, promotional messages which:
-
Are
highly relevant to the prospects in that sector
-
Convince
them that you are a specialist in their own activity /
interest area
-
Show
them that you can meet their own specific needs.
If, for
example, you sell office equipment or consumables, you obviously have a
vast market - almost every type of business. But, instead of sending out
thousands of mailings to every type of business, pick out, say, stone
quarries (to pick an unusual example!) You could focus on dust covers
for equipment and the more rugged end of office equipment ranges.
You can
demonstrate that you understand the needs of the quarrying industry. If
you've got a few customers in that type of industry, you will already
understand their requirements. If not, pick up the phone and without
trying to sell, do a little market research amongst two or three
prospects in that sector.
By showing
that you are a specialist supplier, you'll stand out from all your other
'me too' competitors. This must be a significant
competitive advantage. We know of an insurance broker who was just your
average broker until he started to focus on selling insurance to
dentists. Within two years, he was the UK's leading broker to the dental
profession.
To summarise,
the advantages of targeted marketing are:
-
Your
attention is focused on one specific market area, which is likely to
result in your marketing campaigns being far more cost- and
time-efficient.
-
You
appear to be a specialist in the prospective customer's own field,
and you can increasingly build up a reputation as being just that.
-
Your
promotion material is highly relevant to their needs, and is less
likely to be junked
-
You
stand out from your competitors
-
By
differentiating yourself from your competitors, prospective
customers are less likely to focus on price as the key issue, thus
enhancing your profit margins
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