Ready,Aim,Fire...Oops...Where, marketing Ready, Aim, Fire...Oops...Where's The Target?
Awhile ago, I got an email from one of the "gurus" I follow and it shocked me. The gist of it was this person wanted to trade services for a household item.To say it floored me would be an understatement.What was worse was a few days later t Automation technologies represent a fundamental aspect of any modern industry. The major types of industrial automation solutions, such as DCS, PLC, SCADA, and MES, are used on a large-scale in process and discrete industries.DCS technologie
Everywhere you go on the Internet you find the words,"target market." What do they mean? What does it haveto do with you? Well it has everything to do with yoursuccess in sales. Let me give you an example. A few weeks ago an online entrepreneur asked me to review a directsales presentation for him. Let's call him "Joe". Hisproduct and service is excellent. Top quality andperformance, excellent customer service and support.The product will produce desired results for anybusiness advertising online. In this particular case, Joe's potential customer is inthe furniture manufacturing business. The companyowns a small chain of outlet stores and advertises onthe Internet. Basically, an excellent candidate for Joe'soffer. Well, Joe sent me his package. In the offline world, itwould have required UPS to deliver it with a hand truck!Now, that is an overstatement, but it consisted of athree-page cover letter, with four separate attachmentsand a CD presentation that he was going to mail as afollow-up. Here's my response to Joe: "What a tremendous amount of work you have put intothis presentation. Having been on the receiving end of proposals suchas this, I must tell you that it would be the recipientof the "delete" key. Why? Too much to wade through.Too much for me to absorb. Too much for me to do.Nothing to compel me to read on. Having said that, let's pretend for a moment that I amMr. Jones. 1. Where are the needs development questions? 2. What tells me that you have done your homeworkand know about my industry? 3. What are my problems and how will you solve them? 4. How much does the average household spendon furnishings annually? (In the US it's about $1,000) 5. How are you going to help me capture a share ofthose dollars? 6. How has the economy affected my business? 7. What qualities separate my business from mycompetition? 8. How extensive and how important are brandnames to my customers? 9. What are my specialty areas? 10. What market do I target and why? 11. Why do my customers keep coming back to mystores? 12. What are some of the hot buttons or copy pointsthat you might use to target Mr. Jones? 13. What is his business terminology? Joe, here are two sites that can help you develop amore "targeted" approach to Mr. Jones: http://www.furniture-info.comhttp://www.furniturestatistics.comI hope this helps, Joe. Decision makers arebombarded daily and we must be ever diligent thatwe are focusing in on "WIIFM" (What's In It For Me)". Now, what was the message to Joe?Do Your Homework. Mr. Jones doesn't give a ripabout your product unless it can fulfill his needs,but first you have to know what those needs are. Joe's presentation, which probably took him hoursif not days to prepare, was a classic case of overkill.The two sites referred to would have given Joe all theammunition he needed to prepare an effectivepresentation and in just a few short minutes. By the way, two research tools that I use to studymarkets, trends, and individual sites are listed below.Both are free to download and are priceless. http://www.copernic.com http://www.alexa.com Ready, Aim ... Get Ready To Fire!
Ready,Aim,Fire...Oops...Where,