Surprisingly, many companies approach marketing with a goal to sell some stuff to somebody. Not so surprisingly, their resources are quickly spent with little or no gain.

Targeted Marketing

Target marketing is a term used to define a company’s approach towards focusing marketing and sales efforts toward specific market segments.  Examples range from broad:  business to business (B2B) or business to consumer (B2C) to very specific, such as small businesses within a 4 digit SIC in a specific geography.

The more targeted the marketing, the more likely the company can efficiently use their marketing resources. Additionally, a targeted approach provides the ability to:

♦ Demonstrate Specific Expertise.  A focused approach within a specific market allows for a depth of knowledge to be obtained that can be utilized to better communicate with prospects and customers.   Simply put, people prefer to purchase from a company familiar with their industry and needs.

♦ Emphasize Unique Benefits.  Within a specific market, unique benefits inherent in the offering can be emphasized to “customize” the offering and personalize it to the purchaser.

♦ Focus Marketing Spend.  Spend your valuable time and money marketing to the most likely market segments to purchase your product.

♦ Utilize Awareness Marketing Activities. Trade publications, speaking engagements and white papers can be highly effective tools in building brand recognition and credibility within the segment.    Influencers and advocates providing a recommendation or endorsement can help extend a program’s popularity within a specific market or industry segment.

♦ Increase Referrals.  Buyers are more likely to recommend a business when they recognize that “you know what you’re talking about.” Nothing promotes word-of-mouth faster than being an established expert in a vertical marketing field.

Finding Your Target Market(s)

As we addressed in our last post in this series, businesses should invest time in analyzing their existing customer base to uncover buyer behavior and characteristics.

Next, decide on your target market segments, such as:

Vertical markets:  Industry marketing is one of the best methods to segment your market, as it provides a tremendous opportunity to reap the rewards identified above.  Decide on the segments, identify their SIC or NAICS codes and then create an industry information repository for reference.  FURL is an excellent online tool to collect and archive information by industry.

Small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs):  Many companies spend vast resources to hook the big fish when they might have found it far more profitable and attainable to catch a lot of small to medium-sized fish.  If your product or service is a fit for the SMB market, consider customizing your offering for this large segment of the market.

Specialty market segments:  Many companies overlook potential market segments that may occur based on a special need or creative use of a product.  For example, while most flat screen TVs are purchased for people wanting to watch television, graphic designers, web designers and stock traders frequently use large, flat screens as monitors, creating a non-standard, specialty market for the product.

Market Segmentation Resources

One of the best, and free, resources to obtain market segment information is the US Census Bureau.  The Economic Census profiles American businesses every 5 years, from the national to the local level and provides a vast amount of data ranging from industry to geographic to business owner surveys.

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