Entrepreneurs who see a direct correlation between the size of a target market and the probability of success miss the opportunity to serve healthy niche markets. Niche marketing not only provides startups with an opportunity to launch the business successfully, but can also help them grow into major players in a larger market. Healthy, profitable businesses such as Traulsen, Aman Resorts, Zamboni and Peet’s Coffee and Tea all serve thriving niches.
Archive for category Marketing
Why Serve a Niche Market?
Jan 25
It has been nearly sixty years since organizations began to understand the real importance of marketing strategy and planning. Prior to the 1950s most companies did not have marketing departments, but instead marketing activities were scattered among many departments such as advertising and sales. Things began to change as scholars and consultants pushed for companies to adopt strategies designed to unify a variety of marketing activities carried out in different parts of the company. By the 1960s most major college and university business programs were preaching the importance of marketing and an avalanche of books and magazines supported this cause.
Video used to be the domain of only the largest companies with the biggest marketing budgets. But the explosion of online video sharing sites has given companies of all sizes the opportunity to create and disseminate videos.
As small businesses assess those PR tactics that will yield the greatest ROI, online video has grown in popularity as a way to generate buzz without breaking the bank. However, simply shooting a video and posting it online will not guarantee results. The key to a successful video campaign is compelling content–if you aren’t distributing something that people will want to watch your campaign will fall flat.
You could write the most eloquent copy in the world, but even the best writing doesn’t always drive consumer responses. In other words, it takes more than an ability to write coherently to craft compelling, actionable and meaningful marketing copy that delivers a return on investment that small-business owners need.
Just as there are steps you can follow to ensure you write effective copy, there are also reasons why the copy you produce isn’t working.
“You have to be pretty lean now, but there are opportunities to grow if you are in a position to take advantage of them,” says Edward Marram, a senior lecturer at Babson College’s Arthur M. Blank Center for Entrepreneurship in Wellesley, Mass. “It’s a good time to evaluate your business, find ways to conserve cash and improve. Then look at where other competitors aren’t making it and go after those opportunities.”
The social media movement has expanded the number of people we can reach and connect with on a personal level. The new relationships and connections we create with people all over the world can have a profound effect on our personal and business growth. We learn about cultures and nations that we were, perhaps, previously ignorant of. None of this is a new concept, but what may be is how quickly you can destroy your business by using social media incorrectly.
If your business website doesn’t have a blog, get one. A blog, if done right, can act as a direct and indirect mechanism that brings large amounts of qualified visitors to your site, many of whom may become customers.
This is mostly related to the way blogs interact with search engines and the traffic I am speaking of will come from search engines, mostly Google.
Twitter is a micro-blogging site that asks you a basic question, “What are you doing?” It allows anyone with an account to write up to 140 characters in a text field as a means to update, comment, promote or communicate to others who are “following” you. When people follow you, they see what you’ve recently contributed when they login. They see your “tweets”, which are the messages you leave.
Hopefully, we should all know that websites need good, relevant content in order to be successful at SEO. The better your content is, the more likely it will be to show up in search engines and naturally attract links to your site. Additionally, fresh content is a major factor that plays a role in search engine rankings (which was recently confirmed by Google’s patent application).
The ROI of Social Networking
Oct 25
One of the most common reason stated by small businesses for not embracing social networking is that they can’t measure or, worse yet, don’t believe there is any solid return on the investment of participation.