Target Market

Who Matters

Who Matters

Garth Beyer

Failure doesn’t always mean your product, service, work or art sucks. In fact, most of the time failure means you’re trying to make it appeal to the wrong tribe, you’re trying to get it approved by the wrong people, you’re trying to please the wrong market.

It’s why you hear “that’s really poor marketing/advertising” more often than you hear “that’s a really sucky product/blog post/service.”

Who matters matters greatly.

Don’t scrap what you’ve worked hard to build, scrap who you’ve worked hard to build it for and seek someone new, maybe someone less famous. You’ll be surprised how far re-targeting gets you.

 

Stay Positive & Try Someone New Before You Try Something New

Riff On Yellow Pages

Riff On Yellow Pages

Garth Beyer

yellow-page-ads-dont-work

I’m surprised I’ve got to write about Yellow Pages. I’m surprised they still exist.

The issue isn’t so much how yellow pages promotes itself, reaches out to businesses, and pays people minimum wage to ship the pages to people and businesses that don’t want them. No. What amazes me is that businesses still use them to advertise. Perhaps they think they might as well since so many other businesses have pulled back. That thinking begs to be written about.

When starting a business or working on growing it, you’re presented plenty of options that are small investments with small returns. You may shrug them off or you may run with them. After all, there’s little to lose. Right?

Wrong.  This “Yellow Pages Method” leads you to spread yourself thin. It gives you a false sense of successful marketing. It distracts you from the people you’re meant to focus on, the people who care, the people who seek you out on purpose rather than come by you on accident.

Having a business name that starts with A doesn’t get you extra business anymore.

The other issue with choosing to advertise in Yellow Pages is many do it simply because it’s what they recognize. Again, this action defers the question: is the Yellow Pages what your target market recognizes. Not you. Your target.

It pays to remember businesses don’t survive because of Yellow Pages, Yellow Pages exists because of businesses inability to devise a marketing plan that matters.

One last statement about Yellow Pages, the print version: it’s not a product anymore, it’s an advertisement. The tangible product keeps Yellow Pages on your mind for when people (like me) write about them or mention them, you still recognize it. Perhaps you may come across their online version. Then the question turns away from business owners to the marketing successes and failures of Yellow Pages.

 

Stay Positive & Would You Say Shipping The Hardcopies Is Good Marketing?

Photo credit
When Offering Something Difficult To Acquire Elsewhere

When Offering Something Difficult To Acquire Elsewhere

Garth Beyer

Unique Business

If you’re just starting your business and selling something that’s difficult to acquire elsewhere, you’re appealing to a certain type of person.

Bill Gates won’t be interested. Nor will the farmer who has used the same mixer for his feed for years. I doubt the company that has a daily “business” meeting will want to invest either. They may discuss it at a meeting, but it’ll just be a way to spend time avoiding their real work, sadly.

Being remarkable comes with its setbacks. Those who are detail-intensive might not buy into what you offer. Nor will those who spend their time trying to avoid failure. They’re too busy planning, too busy avoiding doing what they’re not used to doing.

However, Robert Herjavec might be interested in what you have to offer. That avid blogger who is scanning for something new to write about, she’ll try what you provide. Other innovators definitely will give you a shot. After all, they often see people like you as an opportunity to learn from.

You want the type of person who scans Pinterest for a recipe to try that day, not later. You want the lady at the dinner table who, when she doesn’t know what animal’s poop is used to make coffee, googles it right away. (This actually happened to me the other night.)

To be clear, you’re not marketing to the impulse buyer who grabs the reindeer antlers at the checkout line. You want the person who cares, who notices trends, who will try what you have to offer because it’s difficult to acquire elsewhere.

I write all of this so you can answer the following question honestly.

Are you marketing to the right person?

 

Stay Positive & A Special Business Markets Special People

Photo credit