Marketing: Ready, Aim, Fire...Oops...Where's The Target?

Ready, Aim, Fire...Oops...Where's The Target?

Written by Patty Baldwin

Everywhere you go on repparttar

Internet you find repparttar 121981

words, "target market." What do they mean? What does it have to do with you? Well it has everything to do with your success in sales.

Let me give you an example. A few weeks ago an online entrepreneur asked me to review a direct sales presentation for him. Let's call him "Joe". His product and service is excellent. Top quality and performance, excellent customer service and support. The product will produce desired results for any business advertising online.

In this particular case, Joe's potential customer is in repparttar 121982 furniture manufacturing business. The company owns a small chain of outlet stores and advertises on repparttar 121983 Internet. Basically, an excellent candidate for Joe's offer.

Well, Joe sent me his package. In repparttar 121984 offline world, it would have required UPS to deliver it with a hand truck! Now, that is an overstatement, but it consisted of a three-page cover letter, with four separate attachments and a CD presentation that he was going to mail as a follow-up.

Here's my response to Joe:

"What a tremendous amount of work you have put into this presentation.

Having been on repparttar 121985 receiving end of proposals such as this, I must tell you that it would be repparttar 121986 recipient of repparttar 121987 "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 am Mr. Jones.

1. Where are repparttar 121988 needs development questions? 2. What tells me that you have done your homework and know about my industry? 3. What are my problems and how will you solve them? 4. How much does repparttar 121989 average household spend on furnishings annually? (In repparttar 121990 US it's about $1,000) 5. How are you going to help me capture a share of those dollars? 6. How has repparttar 121991 economy affected my business? 7. What qualities separate my business from my competition? 8. How extensive and how important are brand names 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 my stores? 12. What are some of repparttar 121992 hot buttons or copy points that you might use to target Mr. Jones? 13. What is his business terminology?

The 7 Deadly Marketing Sins

Written by Alvin Apple

Gather round everybody! Today is Judgment Day. Let’s bring out those old scoundrels, repparttar

Seven Deadly Marketing Sins, and see what they have to say about our lives as marketers.

What do you have to say, Pride?

I am Pride. I fall in love with my product, with no thought to whether there is any market for it. When I discover that there is no market for my product, I continue to spend money on advertising, even when it is apparent that nothing will come of it. I am willing to go broke marketing something there is no market for because I insist that it is a genius idea.

Okay, that was very insightful, Pride. Let’s move on to Greed.

I am Greed. I want to sell my product, but I am not willing to spend any money to do it. I don’t care how important marketing is. I can sell my product without it. I don’t want to spend a dime more than I have to. I like my money to stay where it is, even if it means I never make any more money.

Wow, Greed! You are one frugal sin! How about you, Wrath? Can you add to what Greed shared with us?

I am Wrath. My advertising didn’t work right away! That makes me so mad! I don’t think that this advertising is ever going to work. That’s it. I give up. I hate losing money on something that isn’t going to work. Yeah, yeah, so I just started advertising yesterday. BUT I WANT RESULTS AND I WANT THEM NOW!

Wrath, you and Greed should get together. You have a lot in common. Now, Envy, I’m certain that you have something a little more constructive to add.

I am Envy. I want to do exactly what others are doing, even if it means trying to sell in an already saturated market. I will assume that, if I do what others are doing, I will succeed in marketing my product. I don’t want to figure out a unique selling position for my own product. I will just do what those other people are doing and not worry about finding an edge. I just want to make some money, like that other guy.

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