Monthly Archives: September 2015

My target market? It’s anyone with a business right?

Well, how many times have you heard this statement or thought it yourself?  Researching for this Blog I found a quote from an American author called Jarod Kintz which made me laugh so I thought I would share it;

“The cool thing about vests is they have no sleeves. I guess their target market is people with no arms. Raise your hand if you disagree.”

I know I often write about things that you have heard before. This is mainly because there isn’t much in business development that is ground breaking or particularly new. The real challenge in business development is about actually doing something about it and consistently… And you know this too right?

I am a big advocate of knowing your target markets and understanding as much about them as possible. The reason being that when it comes to business development it is really important to know who you want to appeal to and then work out what is your specific opportunity and USP in their particular industry. The reality is that in the over-communication we are all experiencing, being specific and relevant to a target market is key to getting their attention, and you can only do this by identifying them and understanding them better.

So, if this sounds logical to you, here is what you could do to get you started on this:

  1. Write a list of all your target markets
  2. Identify their main problem in relation to your solution
  3. Identify what they are trying to achieve on a basic level
  4. Identify what they are trying to achieve to make them stand out
  5. Think what is your main USP in relation to this
  6. Identify the main product you should promote to them

When you have done this, e-mail me and we can work out your main opportunities and next steps.

Happy researching!

We tried it before and it didn’t work…

How many times have you been in this scenario; you are having a marketing meeting and someone talks about this new publication, website or something the competition do which you could adopt? Before they even finish the sentence, you say: ‘we tried it before, it didn’t work…’

It’s very difficult to overcome such a comment because it sounds like you know what you are talking about so you end up doing nothing about it.

If you are one of the frequent users of this phrase, you probably don’t do any pro-active marketing, social media or any other business development activity in your business and that’s OK. As I wrote in one of my previous Blogs, most established businesses get 70% of their work from existing clients. So why bother with business development? Well, here are a few reasons:

  1. It can help you grow beyond your average 2% a year
  2. It might help you get more profitable business or attract more people you like working with
  3. It gives you a sense of control and an opportunity to regulate your operation
  4. It allows you to recruit the right people more often

I know I am behind the curve on this but I recently read Watertight Marketing by Bryony Thomas which I thought is a great marketing book for small businesses. In the book Bryony describes a marketing activity that had gone wrong and suggests that the damage to the business is two-fold; firstly precious resources and money have been wasted and secondly the technique used is written off and filed under ‘tried it and it didn’t work’. If you end up doing this too often, you will end up with a whole bunch of wasted resources and burned techniques which can seriously affect your business development vision.

The main point to consider is that things rarely work in isolation and any business development activity requires a plan, context and accurate timing. In other words, if you want it to work, it needs to be part of an overall campaign and activity plan which carefully builds your reputation and familiarity so people can find you when they need you. Once you worked out who you want to target and how, try putting together a six monthly content marketing plan covering all your activities. These work best if you tie them to the questions customers are likely to ask about your business and themes that are frequently used in your industry. Make sure you assign each activity to a member of the team and share the responsibility to ensure the plan is executed…

Want an example? E-mail me and I will send you my format