Have some of your best potential customers escaped your notice? Could they be under the radar of your sales and marketing teams?
We had a client that launched a new B2B direct venture selling bargain-priced sheets and towels. Given the quality of the merchandise, they were confident their primary target should be budget hotel and motel chains.
That was the obvious choice. But it was also the obvious choice of their competition. When sales failed to meet expectations they began to question their strategy. That’s when they reached out for help.
We began by challenging them to “think outside the box” and answer one simple question.
Who in America would be the least concerned with “thread count” and whether anyone sleeping on their sheets would find them too rough?
We suggested the obvious answer was PRISON WARDENS!
That led to a separate marketing initiative focusing on exclusively prisons. Four months later they signed their first major contract with a large correctional institution.
By avoiding the pitfall of limiting their definition of high-potential customers, sales took off in an entirely new direction.
Then there was a company that discovered they’d missed a lucrative market by only focusing on competition that sold similar goods or services.
The problem was their definition of the competition was too narrow.
Today, most discretionary purchases are lumped into one pool of dollars forcing every business to justify why they deserve a piece of the pie.
We had a client who experienced this firsthand. Their company sold everything for homeowners’ outdoor spaces.
They wanted to attract more women customers but hadn’t been successful. So they reached out for help to get a fresh perspective.
The first step was asking mothers to share stories of their happiest times spent outdoors. The women talked about gathering around a firepit after dinner and roasting s’mores. They cherished bonding as a family and said it was one of the few activities that appealed to all their children regardless of age.
That led to marketing firepits to mothers as a way to create “memories” rather than lumping them together with grills and smokers on the basis of “features” and “price” which was how they were traditionally marketed to men.
𝗦𝗔𝗟𝗘𝗦 𝗝𝗨𝗠𝗣𝗘𝗗 𝟲𝟳%.
Rather than selling MERCHANDISE, they sold an EXPERIENCE. And that tapped into a broader discretionary pool of dollars set aside for other family activities such as staycations, zoos, amusement parks, museums, restaurants, and, movies.
————————————————————————————————————–
Linda Goodman, CEO of Virtual CMO on Tap specializes in providing Owners and CEOs of small to mid-size companies with strategic and tactical marketing solutions without the overhead expense of a top tier
marketing executive on-staff.
She is also the pioneer of Emotional Trigger Research and author of the book “Why Customers Really Buy: Uncovering the Emotional Triggers that Drive Sales.”