[Earl, one of our readers, left this as a comment on an older post. I think it’s a good discussion starter, so I brought it here as a post. Becky]
SERVE THE UNDERSERVED” and watch the sales roll in!
By Earl L. Sigmund CPAI guess that I never looked at target marketing this way before. Instead of taking your product or service and trying to find a target market to buy your product or service, we should first do research on what group of people is underserved and then DEVELOP something that this group wants to buy. Seems like a no-brainer to me. This is what ESPN did, 24 hour headline news did, even McDonald’s did.
Just what do entrepreneurs want now that they don’t have? What do stressed-out families want now that they don’t have?
Maybe this sort of thinking will help entrepreneurs figure out why their marketing efforts fail. Research and analysis of the marketplace are key. Let’s take the time to do our homework instead of just jumping in and forcing our own services and products down everyone’s throats.
What under-served markets do you see around your town?
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Becky started Small Biz Survival in 2006 to share rural business and community building stories and ideas with other small town business people. She and her husband have a small cattle ranch and are lifelong entrepreneurs. Becky is an international speaker on small business and rural topics.
I like this idea. Why start with the big huge market that is so obvious? What about the problem for people with not-so-much money? We can sometimes overlook opportunity when we think big.
I think my town (an older suburb of Minneapolis) could use a new format for news and sharing information.
Having started a couple of start ups myself, I can speak to the risks of going after an established market. Generally, these markets are well covered by multiple established businesses, and breaking into the market with an also-ran is a sure path to failure. If you target instead a niche which may have been missed or is only partially covered by other players, you can customize your product to the under-served demographic, and find willing customers much more easily. In fact, the customers will seek you out, and this will reduce your marketing budget accordingly.
Tim, that’s a great example. Taking an old idea into a new format.
Boots, my last business (and my one that is almost here) both followed the same pattern: head out to new territory.