Niche Marketing Matters

Now that is a heavy question, is it not? Yet, there must be some reason that you are here on this planet at this time.

This type of question can motivate some to study philosophy and others to enter the seminary. Or, you could consider good old fashioned denial and avoidance to dodge the question—why bother answering a question that cannot be answered anyway?

To save you that trouble, here is the simple answer. You exist to fulfill your own unique purpose—whatever that may be. That is why you exist.

You have a unique responsibility to live out your own personal script. Maybe that purpose is to invent things like software or music. Your purpose could be to lead or teach others. You might have one purpose, a few, or many. Whatever it is, it is exclusively yours. It does not matter what your purpose is as long as you do it.

Alas, here is the rub—you must uncover your purpose before you can do it. One way to discover your purpose is with the creation of a personal mission statement. A personal mission statement addresses three questions:

1) What is your life about?

2) What do you stand for?

3) What are you doing to fulfill that purpose?

Using no more than 30 words, a personal mission statement says what you wish to accomplish or contribute and who you want to be. Your mission statement speaks about what you are doing today to fulfill that purpose. Don’t confuse your mission with vision. Vision statements describe what could be in the future while a mission statement lives in the here and now.

Yes, answering these questions may not be easy. Here is an exercise that might help get you going. Imagine that it is your 80th birthday and you are having a grand party. All your family, friends, co-workers in your profession, and neighbors have gathered to hear you speak. What would you say to them was most important in your life? What did you do for the last 80 years? Why? How?

As the Greek philosopher Epictetus wrote, “First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do.”

John Bradley Jackson
© Copyright 2009 All rights reserved.
(this blog is being republished by request)

A good domain name should have the following elements:

1. It should be easy to spell. Avoid hyphens, double letters or funny spellings. Hyphens get confused with underscores. Double letters can cause confusion. Unusual or clever spelling gets us all in trouble.

2. Domains ending in .com are preferred but .net and .us are becoming more common. This ending suffix is called a domain extension.

3. Two word combinations are preferred. Longer combinations can be hard to remember. I regret to inform you that it seems that almost every two word URL has been taken. Three words may be the only way to go.

4. Made up words and acronyms have been the rage—think Google, Yahoo!, and Zappos. Still the cost of creating a brand for a name like this is astronomical. Interestingly enough Google gives higher rank to URLs that use searchable words. For example, www.nichemarketingmatters.com contains search friendly terms.

5. Short is always better, but good luck with that. It is not easy with .com prefixes.

John Bradley Jackson
© Copyright 2009 All rights reserved.

One of my former students, Ali Vaziri, has created an online television show which is part debate, part comic book, and part farce.

Very funny stuff.

This is TV of the future.

Take a look at it at http://www.banterbiscuit.com/

John Bradley Jackson
© Copyright 2009 All rights reserved.

If you want people to understand your presentation and remember your key points, be sure to use visuals. Studies show that 83% of learning occurs visually.

This means that you need to replace or enrich your text with flowcharts, org charts, diagrams, charts and graphs.. By all means, add color to help your audience.

Dark backgrounds with light colored text work best in a PowerPoint environment—this is easier on the eyes.

Photos are also powerful—choose them carefully since they will be remembered. Note the photo of my loyal paint horse George.

Text is great but visuals are remembered.

John Bradley Jackson
© Copyright 2009 All rights reserved.

There are times when a full business plan is not needed. Time may not allow for the creation of a full length plan or the reader might just want a shorter version. In this case, a dehydrated business plan is often chosen.

This type of plan is a very brief version of the traditional business plan. It is also referred to as a skeleton plan or business brief. Amazingly, the process of writing the dehydrated business plan can be very effective since the entrepreneur is challenged to condense the idea into only 5-10 pages. This condensation eliminates the fluff often seen in full length plans.

The end product ends up reading more like a long executive summary with a few financial tables. The plan often includes the customers’ pain, the solution, the competitive advantage, and the value proposition. Most importantly it must communicate the business model—it must describe how the business will make money. Add a forecast, some basic costs, and the capital required. The plan is complete.

While this type of plan can be completed in much a shorter time, the sophisticated investor will want to know more. In this case, the entrepreneur typically scrambles to come up with the missing details. Generally, a dehydrated business plan is not designed for the process of raising capital. Maybe the best application is within a large corporate environment when the basic idea is enough to get the approval to go forward.

John Bradley Jackson
© Copyright 2009 All rights reserved.

Forecasting sales at a start-up is part educated guess and part in-depth research. Forecasting can be tougher for a niche marketer since little existing data will be available. In this case, the entrepreneur knows best—assuming he or she knows the target market intimately.

There is no substitute for knowing your customers and why they will buy your offering. Buyers will choose your product over the competition because it is different or better.

Presuming your offering is competitive and is desired by the target market, here are the basic steps in developing a sales forecast:

1. Develop a profile of your target market- Who are your customers and why do they need your offering?

2. Determine the trends in your industry- What is unique about the purchasing cycle in your space? Are there any anticipated future trends such as changes in government regulation, economic changes, or environmental changes?

3. Define the size or boundaries of your market- This market sizing could be by geography such as North America, by vertical such as healthcare, or by technology such as Apple users. You get the picture.

4. Identify your competitors- Who supply your customer today? At what sales volume? What channel of distribution?

5. Estimate an average sales price for your offering- This price should be conservative and may increase or decrease in years two or three. Note that discounting may be needed in year one.

6. Calculate monthly sales- Prepare sales estimates by month. Be sure to assess how seasonality may impact your sales cycle; this includes holidays, summer versus winter, or specific industry buying trends.

7. Compare your annual forecast to other similar companies- Consider using Risk Management Association (RMA) data to determine if your forecast is reasonable? If it varies from the industry norm, how will you explain this variance to investors or bankers?

8. Be prepared to change and modify this forecast- As you build your financial plan, it is normal for your forecast to change. Stay flexible.

Sales forecasting is a best guess, but if you know your customer it is an educated guess and you are the best one to do it.

John Bradley Jackson
© Copyright 2008 All rights reserved.

Need a quick way to communicate the company mission or your personal mission? Then consider a mantra.

Traditionally, a mantra is a sacred syllable, phrase, or verse associated with deep meditation or prayer. Applied to people and organizations, mantras help people focus on what is important.

Nowadays, a mantra is three to five words about why your firm exits or even why you exist. No Shakespeare is needed. In fact, plain English is required (please, no business speak about “core competencies” or “strategic collaboration”). I suggest choosing words or a phrase that express how you are unique or special.

Your company mantra should be immediately understood by the guys down in shipping as well as the board members. Your personal mantra should be understood by e-mail readers and by your grandparents.

What is your mantra?

John Bradley Jackson
© Copyright 2009 All rights reserved.

P.S. Thanks to author Guy Kawasaki for reinventing the word mantra.

Creating publicity with public relations is a lot of hard work but studies show that PR is 8-10 times more believable than advertising. Getting your name in the newspaper, in the trade press, on the internet, on the radio, or on television helps build credibility and helps build your brand. Unlike advertising which is paid for, publicity or “ink” is earned by building relationships and hard work.

A PR strategy has the following essential elements:

• Create the positioning message; what is the one thing that you want your target market to know about you or your firm?
• Write a two- to three-word mantra which describes the message. These will be the words used in your workplace and externally. They must be memorable and believable.
• Test your message with your staff, your vendors, and your customers. How does the target audience receive it? Adjust your message based on the feedback. Test it again.
• Create press releases so that you present your pitch in the form of news. More than a commercial, tie the launch of your press releases to a significant event to create timeliness. The press is always interested in what is timely, informative, and they like it to be a bit controversial.
• Create press kits; when they call, you need to send follow-up materials. They always ask for them. This is done by e-mail more and more; some may ask for paper, so have both types ready.
• Create product evaluation kits; these are great selling tools for customers. Include a sample of your merchandise. This can be done virtually on the web or by mail.
• Create mailing lists for customers, prospects, and everyone else that needs to hear your story. This name development is critical and needs to be an ongoing process; the best lists are built by getting permission from visitors to your website. Lists can also be purchased and PR firms can help with this task.
• Introduce yourself to analysts, industry mavens, and people of influence. This may seem daunting on your own, but if you start asking around and watching for names in the industry periodicals, you will find them. This is also when a PR agency helps a lot. Your goal is to build a relationship with these movers and shakers; it is up to you to stay in touch since they won’t call you.
• Make some noise! This would be press releases, interviews, and events. Be sure you contact PR Newswire, Business Wire, Market Wire etc. Throw a party! Frequency of contact is the number one criteria in a purchasing decision, so you cannot have enough publicity.
• Track your success by monitoring new leads, number of press quotes, and other indicators of awareness. This will help evaluate the effectiveness of your current PR efforts and help with future PR choices.
• Create a constituency with the readership by seeking feedback and involving them in the critique of your PR effort. Heed their advice and modify what the plan. This will also help facilitate the creation of relationships with the press.

John Bradley Jackson
© Copyright 2008 All rights reserved.

Given the many options for new products and new ventures, why not create an offering that solves a problem or relieves a pain for your customer—a problem that the customer wants to fix right away.

When people have headaches they reach for aspirin or other pain relievers. The need is clear and immediate. The value proposition is pain relief (i.e. no more headaches). Price is not an issue. Just get me the pill.

Vitamins are different. The need to purchase generally needs to be created and marketed. The purchase can always be done later or not at all. Vitamins are nice to have but are not really needed (yes, some may argue this point with me).

When contemplating new ventures or new products, stick with solutions that address known problems or real issues. The time to market is much quicker, the selling is easier, and the cost of promotion is far less.

Thus, the likelihood of success is greater than selling vitamins.

John Bradley Jackson
© Copyright 2008 All rights reserved.

There are many books written about strategic marketing and the authors seem to delight in making it look really sophisticated and complex. In actuality, strategic marketing is really pretty simple.

Strategic Marketing is about analyzing opportunities while answering three basic questions:

- What might we do?
- What do we do best?
- What must we do?

So, why change your marketing strategy? Most of the time companies change because they have no choice. They are forced to change because of factors such as declining profitability, environmental changes, outright failure, political or legal changes, advances by the competition, socio-economic change, and population shifts.

The word strategy is generally used when people want to change things rather than maintaining the status quo. While there may be many potential marketing strategies, pragmatism generally rules the day and companies will focus on on what must be done to make a profit today.

Generally speaking there are only four types of marketing strategy:

1. Market Penetration Strategy- Sell existing products to existing markets.

2. Market Development Strategy- Sell existing products to new markets.

3. Product Development Strategy- Create new products for existing markets.

4. Diversification Strategy- Create new products for new markets.

Marketing strategy involves the selection of markets and the development of programs to reach those markets. The programs that help reach those markets are venerable 4 Ps of Marketing: Price, Place, Product, and Promotion.

It is really that simple.

John Bradley Jackson
© Copyright 2008 All rights reserved.