Gg's Q & A Forum

I’d like to compile a book of great target marketing practices across all industries that would appeal to many different interests. We all know of people or have heard stories of the incredible lengths that some people go to understand and infiltrate their desired market. Please take a moment and tell us a story, whether it’s yours or someone else’s. Be sure to get in touch with me with your contact info so that I can follow up with you if I would like to ask permission to use it in my compilation of stories. Thanks for joining in the conversation!

I liked the highlights of this article from the May/June issue of Power Selling with its 8 Steps to postive listening skills.

In sum: A GOOD listener….1) repeats and clarifies info.; 2) listens at the optimal attention level; 3) exchanges info.; 4) adjusts to emotion-laden words; 5) hears the speaker out; 6) doesn’t listen for facts but rather for emotion 7) prepares for a conversation, adjusts thought speed to speech speed.

We always intend to get more serious about our brands but other things come up and good branding falls by the wayside. It’s past the time to make this a priority. We need to identify our brands, understand why they’re different and why they resonate with our markets and then, live them every day!

It’s important also to consider that there are tangible and intangible aspects to our brands. Your building, your stationery, your logo, your products are many of the tangible items. The intangibles are your values, where you spend your resources, what quality of paper your logo is printed on, the colors of your logo, your leadership style and how you inspire people, etc.

Customers notice everything and they notice if 1) we even have a distinctive brand, and 2) whether we’re living it tangibly and intangibly in the way we conduct our business.

To get started identifying your brand, consider the “story” of your firm. Stories are very important. Daniel Pink explains in his book “A Whole New Mind” that they are “context, enriched with emotion.” I like to think of context as our tangible offerings and emotion as our intangible characterisitics. Our intangibles and tangibles can be good or bad and they can meld or conflict with eachother. To reach our customer distinctively and own our markets, we need both the tangibles and intangibles to gel meaningfully together!

Some of the questions you may ask yourself to start understaning your firm’s “story” are the following:
- Why are you in business?
- Whom do you serve?
- Who are some of your founders?
- How have you overcome adversity?
- What are your values as an organization?
- How do you deliver on your values?

Once you give some deep thought to these and other questions, you’ll be well on your way to articulating your unique and personal story.

For an intersting article that also covers this topic, please visit the following link. I found the embedded link at the bottom of the 2nd paragraph, called “Engaging Stories” worth reading and I think you will too!

http://sparksheet.com/joe-pulizzi-multitasking-makes-you-stupid-—-the-case-for-outsourcing-content/

There are broad market categories (small business owners; health care, Asian Business Owners) and there are target markets (Osteopaths; Physical Therapists; Fitness Businesses) and finally there are Niche Markets (Asian restaurant owners in NW Atlanta; or physical therapists who specialize in sports injuries only, etc) As you can see, the groups get more narrow but they are identified based on the size of the region of target.
So, if you were in a very small town, small business owners could actually be a target market because there are so few. However, in a metro area like Atlanta, one has to be pretty strict with their definitions if one really wants to specialize in a market because the scope is so broad and wide. You can see that IT and Health Care are truly broad market categories in a metro area like N Atlanta. Target Markets would be “IT companies who specialize in Healthcare” or a subsegment of the Health Care market like registered nurses. I don’t mean to over complicate things but to give you the best research and provide the best ideas for planning, it’s really important to think through what a decent size target market would be. A rule of thumb that I have always found helpful is a group of between 350 – 700 individuals or companies. If your market size is larger than that, it may be too broad for specialization.

There are broad market categories (small business owners; health care, Asian Business Owners) and there are target markets (Osteopaths; Physical Therapists; Fitness Businesses) and finally there are Niche Markets (Asian restaurant owners in NW Atlanta; or physical therapists who specialize in sports injuries only, etc) As you can see, the groups get more narrow but they are identified based on the size of the region of target.
So, if you were in a very small town, small business owners could actually be a target market because there are so few. However, in a metro area like Atlanta, one has to be pretty strict with their definitions if one really wants to specialize in a market because the scope is so broad and wide. You can see that IT and Health Care are truly broad market categories in a metro area like N Atlanta. Target Markets would be “IT companies who specialize in Healthcare” or a subsegment of the Health Care market like registered nurses. I don’t mean to over complicate things but to give you the best research and provide the best ideas for planning, it’s really important to think through what a decent size target market would be. A rule of thumb that I have always found helpful is a group of between 350 – 700 individuals or companies. If your market size is larger than that, it may be too broad for specialization.

I was talking to a successful GA from a largeEast Coast agency on Friday and he told me he wanted to focus on certain target markets in 2010 and wanted help. Pretty quickly in the conversation a potential roadblock arose. The “target markets” of interest were actually not target markets at all. They were product-related categories, like estate planning, retirement, long term care, etc. Keep in mind that target markets are about PEOPLE, never products, and it will be much easier to go after them.

Hello! Welcome to Gg’s Q & A Forum! Please feel free to list your questions related to Marketing Research, Target Marketing, Target Recruiting, Creating a Relationship-driven Marketing Firm, The Value of a Top Tier Client, etc. and we’ll be happy to respond. Also be sure to check out our website for more great information at www.thegallaghergroup.net and follow us on Twitter at Ggmktg.